If you think Red bull Racing is walking away with the constructors championship, think again.
Christian Horner has been insistent all season that his car’s hefty advantage could dissipate at any moment. Formula 1 could turn up to its next grand prix and suddenly Red Bull Racing’s second-plus advantage over its competitors could vanish.
It might sound silly. Quite possibly it is silly. More realistically it’s a bit of expectation management and, more importantly, brand management. No-one is going to tune in to the next 19 races if Horner says that the title is as good as wrapped up.
Watch the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix 2023 live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports this Monday, 8 May, at 5:30am AEST. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
But there is a tiny kernel of legitimacy to his worries. The team has made a rocket start, but it’s still combating reduced wind tunnel time in the development race.
Is a 10 per cent cut enough to bring the Bulls back down to earth? Horner doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.
Elsewhere, Nikita Mazepin is suing several nations over his attempts to make it back into Formula 1.
Sebastian Vettel is also back in the news but for considerably more pleasant reasons involving classic F1 cars.
RED BULL RACING STILL WARY OF COST CAP PAIN
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner insists he’s taking nothing for granted in the constructors championship despite his car’s formidable pace advantage in the first four rounds of the season.
Though the RB19’s qualifying streak was broken by Charles Leclerc in Azerbaijan, it is yet to get close to losing any of the grands prix, winning each by hefty margins.
Depending on the circuit, the car’s race pace has been up to a second a lap quicker than its rivals.
Despite a warming battle between drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, Horner said he was still preoccupied by the capacity of rival teams to close the gap, particularly given the penalty levied against RBR for breaching the 2021 cost cap.
“What we’re more focused on as well at the moment is building a buffer with both the drivers, because when we get back to Europe, I’m sure there’s going to be sizeable upgrades,” he said. “Of course we have a reduced capacity to develop this year. That’s where our focus is, trying to build a gap.”
Red Bull Racing was slapped with a 10 per cent reduction in development time for 12 months from October last year. The team has approximately 20 per cent less wind tunnel time than Ferrari, 27 per cent less than Mercedes and almost 60 per cent less than Aston Martin.
Perez claims Sprint race in Azerbaijan! | 02:06
Horner said he still expected that disparity to bite this year despite the current margin.
“We have had to be very selective about how we use our wind tunnel time,” he said. “We don’t have the ability to just run loads of different ideas and concepts; it has to be very targeted and focused.
“You can’t run as many iterations. You’ve got to focus on, ‘Okay, these are the things that we really want to look at’.
“Thankfully the basis of the car that we have is a solid starting point.”
Red Bull Racing is 93 points ahead of Aston Martin in the constructors championship. Title leader Verstappen leads Pérez by six points and Fernando Alonso by 33 points.
NIKITA MAZEPIN SUES UNITED KINGDOM, CANADA
Spurned Russian F1 driver Nikita Mazepin has launched legal action against the British government to have sanctions against him overturned in a bid to return to the sport.
The 24-year-old former Haas driver is also suing the Canadian government over similar restrictions.
Mazepin was levied with sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February after his father, Dmitry, was deemed “a member of the closest circle” of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
His former Haas team sacked him and cut ties with title sponsor Uralkali, the Russian fertiliser company controlled by his father, in the days after the invasion.
Mazepin faces a travel ban and an asset freeze in the UK, which his lawyer argued to London’s High Court this week prevented him from negotiating with F1 teams.
Lawyers representing the British government have argued the restrictions are no impediment to Mazepin entering into talks with prospective employers.
Mazepin has also applied to Canada’s Federal Court to have sanctions overturned on the grounds that he is a “young sportsman and professional motorsport driver who is in no way involved in the aggression suffered by Ukraine”.
His application also argued that Canadian restrictions were harming his ability to return to Formula 1 because the sport hosts a race in Montreal.
The European Union General Court has already lifted some sanctions against Mazepin, ruling that he “is in no way involved in the aggression suffered by Ukraine and does not exercise any activity in economic sectors which provide a substantial source of income” for Russia.
He is required to race under a neutral flag when competing in Europe.
Mazepin returned to racing this season in the Asian Le Mans Series for LMP2 team 99 Racing, where he twice stood on the podium and finished fourth in the two-round endurance championship.
VETTEL RETURNS TO THE COCKPIT
Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel is getting back behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car at the famous Goodwood Festival of Speed later this year to promote sustainable fuels in motor racing.
Vettel, who retired from the premier class at the end of last season, will drive Nigel Mansell’s 1992 title-winning Williams FW14B and Ayrton Senna’s McLaren MP4/8 from 1993. Both are from his private collection.
It’ll be the second time Vettel has publicly run the FW14B on sustainable fuel, having undertaken a demonstration run in the famous Red 5 at last year’s British Grand Prix.
Vettel used that exhibition to launch Race Without a Trace, a campaign to raise awareness of the potential of synthetic carbon-neutral fuels in combustion racing. The FW14B required no mechanical changes to run the fuel.
Formula 1 plans to introduce a similar ‘drop-in’ synthetic fuel for 2026.
MORE MOTORSPORT
‘DO IT AT A NORMAL TRACK NOW’: Red Bull boss highlights biggest weakness in Pérez’s title hopes
McLAREN UPGRADES: Numbers reveal crucial Piastri boost, but ‘biggest weakness’ must still be solved
NOT GOOD FOR THE SHOW’: Did F1’s sprint tweaks turn ‘ludicrous’ Azerbaijan into ‘boring’ Baku?
“It‘s great to be coming back to Goodwood after all these years,” Vettel said. “I can’t wait to get behind the wheel of some of my most memorable cars, which will be running on sustainable fuel over the weekend.
“I’m a passionate racer and it’s important to me that we continue to enjoy driving iconic racing cars today and in the future but that we do so in a responsible way.”
Goodwood organisers say that approximately 20 per cent of the cars at the event will be powered by hydrogen, electricity or synthetic fuels.
In September sister event Goodwood Revival will transition the Fordwater Trophy — a race for pre-1966 Porsche 911s — to run only on synthetic fuels.
While combustion engines powered by synthetic fuel emit carbon dioxide, they are considered carbon neutral because the C02 in the fuel is captured from the atmosphere, theoretically leaving the environment no worse off overall.
However, the so-called e-fuels are energy intensive to create and can be considered sustainable only when manufactured using renewable electricity.
