F1: Limited aero time will bite Red Bull on 2024 car – Kravitz (Update)
Asked whether Red Bull will continue to update the RB19 or look ahead early to the RB20, Horner told Sky F1: “Well it’s finding that balance and because obviously we have a lot less wind tunnel time, we have to start thinking a lot about next year.
“So you’re spinning a couple of plates at the moment, but with the regulations being stable, whatever you learn this year you carry into next year as well.
“So of course there are things that we’ll still keep bringing to this year’s car, but a lot of the focus now back at the factory is already on next year.”
“Here’s the downer for the rest of the teams, when Christian Horner said that we’re already designing and spending our time on next year’s car, on the RB20,” Kravitz said on his ‘Ted’s Notebook’ program this past weekend from Montreal.
“They’ve already got the advantage with this year’s car, we’re not even at halfway [in the] season, and already they can have the capacity and the aerodynamic testing time and the wind tunnel time, even considering the penalty for the accepted breach agreement on the cost cap, to concentrate on next year’s car.
“So it’s a virtuous circle having such a good car this year. And it might end up that that cost cap breach, accepted breach agreement, and the penalty with the 10% less wind tunnel time that Red Bull had, might not end up being a penalty at all.
“Because if they can start now on next year’s car, then it’s not going to be a penalty at all is it? So all that hullabaloo later on last year turned out not to be a hullabaloo because it looks like it’s not going to affect Red Bull at all.”
We here at AutoRacing1.com disagree with Kravitz. Not only does Red Bull get 10% less wind tunnel time because of the cost cap breach, as Constructors Champions they also get less wind tunnel time to give the other teams a chance to catch up.
Formula 1 currently has a handicap system for wind tunnel time, which means that the top teams get time to test the aerodynamics of their challenger.
For the current championship, Red Bull Honda were meant to have 70 per cent of the allotted wind tunnel time given the fact that they won the Formula 1 Constructors’ championship in 2022.
However, this value will now drop to 63 per cent over the following year 10 months due to an additional 10% reduction for a minor breach of the 2021 cost cap, giving them 38 wind tunnel runs fewer than Ferrari and 44 fewer than Mercedes.
June 20, 2023
Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz says Red Bull’s 2021 cost cap breach penalty “is going to bite Red Bull, just not yet and certainly not before they win this year’s World Championship”.
Last year, after it was revealed that Red Bull had breached the 2021 budget cap, the team was handed a $7m fine and a 10 percent reduction in aero testing time.
Despite this, the Austrian team has thus far completely dominated the 2022 and now the 2023 season. Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz dives into when the penalty could start to affect them.
“It’s clear to me now why the upper surfaces, the sidepods and all the rest of it of the RB19 look more or less the same as the RB18,” Kravitz said.
“It’s that Adrian Newey, Pierre Wache and all of the people at Red Bull spent all their time over the winter on that floor.
“And if you’re thinking about ‘Hang on, what about cost cap aerodynamic testing restrictions, a penalty, when is that going to come in?’
“Well, Pierre Wache, the technical director, had an answer for me for that on Thursday, when he said the end of the season that cut in aerodynamic testing is going to have an effect, and crucially it’s going to have effect on next year’s RB20 as well.
“I thought that was really, really interesting. So if you’re thinking that ‘Hang on I thought with the accepted breach of agreement of last year’s cost cap how come they’ve got the best car?’
“It is going to bite Red Bull, just not yet and certainly not before they win this year’s World Championship, which they deserve to because they’ve got a great car and Max Verstappen is driving brilliantly, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” the Briton concluded.