F1: Red Bull opponents asleep at the wheel

It is now clear that all nine Red Bull F1 rivals are asleep at the wheel. While some fanboys blame Red Bull for cheating, in fact, it is not.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Red Bull’s Technical Director Pierre Waché is surprised by the fact that rival F1 teams have yet to figure out the reason behind their strong DRS (Drag Reduction System).

“The crazy thing is that people are talking about it two years after we introduced it.”

“We had hundreds of tests by the FIA to see if we had used a trick or something, and people [even recently] don’t understand why on high downforce tracks the advantage disappears.”

“Okay, that means they haven’t been able to figure it out yet. And that surprises us a lot.”

At Spa

In theory, the larger the rear wing, the clearer the DRS effect

With their DRS open, Red Bull gained 20.3 km/h despite using a small, low downforce rear wing.

McLaren and George Russell should have benefited most on Friday with their high downforce rear wing choices. McLaren DRS speed only gained 15.3/km, yet Russell gained 24.3 km/h, and was ahead of Red Bull and Ferrari

Ferrari also has a good DRS effect with the high-speed wings and with a delta of 19.0 km/h, 2nd to Red Bull

Hamilton was only 13.2 km/h faster with his wing open, most likely due to a lower downforce rear wing choice to Mercedes teammate Russell.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believes the cost cap makes it more difficult to catch up to Red Bull.

“One weekend Ferrari is ahead in quali, one time McLaren, one time Mercedes”

“But we are always behind Red Bull, and at least in the race they still have a huge gap”

“I think that everybody is improving, but the reality of the regulations and the cost gap is that we are improving much slower than in the past.”……….

…….Meaning the cost cap is working exactly as intended – the big teams can no longer throw $100 million at a problem to beat their opponents.