2022 was a dominant season in F1 for Red Bull. They won their first constructors’ championship since 2013, breaking Mercedes’ eight-year streak. Max Verstappen won his second consecutive drivers’ title thanks to 15 wins. Teammate Sergio Perez finished third in the drivers’ championship with two wins and seven points of the season.
Just when you thought that was good, their 2023 season was in another stratosphere.
Red Bull won all but one Grand Prix a season ago, cruising towards a second consecutive constructors’ title. Verstappen dominated, winning all but three Grands Prix, breaking the record for the highest winning percentage in a single season set by the legendary Alberto Ascari in 1952. Perez again won two races and moved up to second in the drivers’ standings, the best result of his F1 career.
Is it possible to improve on what they did a season ago?
Photo credit: Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images
Highlights of 2023: Everything. single. week.
Whichever week you choose, it was undoubtedly the highlight of the season for Red Bull.
If you win all but one Grand Prix over the course of an F1 season, the above statement will be your result.
But if I had to pick one moment that stands out, it would be qualifying for Monaco.
Qualifying for Monaco is a ball game, given the difficulties involved in overtaking the race itself. Overtaking is very important on Monte Carlo’s winding roads, and if you want to win it’s a good idea to start from the front.
After Perez crashed in Q1, more on that later, Red Bull’s hopes of winning in Monaco rested on Verstappen’s shoulders. He passed Q1 with the fastest time in the first session and was fastest again in Q2.
But Q3 was a different story. Verstappen’s first push lap in Q3 was far from perfect, and when the dust settled after the first set of runs, Fernando Alonso topped the timesheets and Verstappen was fifth. Verstappen was able to improve his position in the second set of push laps and moved into second place.
However, each driver still had one more push lap left.
A frenzied drive to the finish began, resulting in one of the most memorable moments of the entire F1 season. Esteban Ocon set a blistering lap and took provisional pole position by the second. Alonso followed with a strong lap, momentarily giving Aston Martin pole position.
However, Verstappen brought his RB19 to its full potential for a second and momentarily to the barrier, making the final lap permanent. In the end, he put the RB19 on pole position and took his first pole position in Monaco.
You can ride with Verstappen throughout the lap. here.
“You have to give it your all and put it all on the line,” he said. Verstappen after qualifying. “The first sector of the last lap wasn’t ideal. I think I was a little cautious in Turn 1. But I knew I was behind, so I gave it my all in the last sector. I clipped that barrier, but of course I’m very happy to get my first pole position here.”
Qualifying in Monaco may be the most testing moment for Verstappen in 2023.
And of course he delivered.
Low summer of 2023: A disappointing summer of qualifying for Sergio Perez
If there was one difficult period for Red Bull last season, it was Perez’s disastrous qualifying period, which began in Monaco at the end of May and was not concluded until the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of July.
In that leg and in five different Grands Prix (Monaco, Spain, Canada, Austria, Great Britain), Perez was unable to advance the RB19, the dominant package that year, to Q3.
There were several different reasons. Perez was seen as the favorite to win in Monaco due to his prowess on the road, but he crashed at the Saint Devote corner at the start of Q1. In Barcelona, he went wide at Turn 5, crashed into the gravel, and was eliminated from Q2. At the Canadian Grand Prix, Perez got caught on the track on the wrong tire during wet weather and was unable to get out of Q2.
Austria may have been Perez’s toughest qualifying session. That weekend was dominated by “track limits”, with many drivers seeing their lap times removed both in qualifying and the race itself. Perez was one of those drivers, with all of his laps recorded in Q2 deleted. He ended up starting the race in 15th place.
At Silverstone, Perez briefly topped the timesheets in Q1, but was then overtaken by almost everyone and was unable to advance to Q2.
However, Perez was still able to maximize results in many of these races. He finished 16th in Monaco, but bounced back in the other four races, finishing 4th in Spain, 6th in Canada, 3rd in Austria and 6th at Silverstone. However, this grim development opened the door to questions about Perez’s future with the team, with even Verstappen chiming in, pointing out that the strength of the RB19 means Q3 is a prerequisite. “I don’t know why it didn’t go well today, but of course with our car we have to be in Q3,” Verstappen said. Speaking after qualifying for the British Grand Prix..
Perez stopped sliding at the Hungaroring and qualified ninth. But that stretch made headlines last season and marked continued doubts about his future with the team.
Outlook for 2024
Given that it’s Red Bull and they were dominant before the season, podiums, wins and championships are expected.
But they are the ones being chased, and all nine other teams are doing everything they can to not only keep pace with Red Bull, but to overtake them on track and in the standings. And in what could be a major storyline this season, how will the RB20 compare to its predecessor? That question came to light when the team announced the 2024 Challenger last Friday. reached its climax and many wondered if the team was moving to a Mercedes-inspired sidepod configuration.zero pod” their future.
Can Adrian Newey, considered the greatest engineer in F1 history, really make the Zeropod work for Red Bull?
We’ll know more about the RB20 later this week, but it will be interesting to see their Challenger debut in Bahrain in 2024.
But the bottom line is that another constructors’ championship is a clear objective for the team, as is another drivers’ title for Verstappen. And as we saw last year, Verstappen may be good enough to win Red Bull’s Constructors’ Championship on his own.
Person under the most pressure to perform in 2024: Sergio Perez
When you’re at the top of the team, there’s pressure no matter where you are.
The pressure is on team principal Christian Horner to get this team back to the fore. (There’s also added pressure from an ongoing internal investigation into his alleged “inappropriate” conduct, which may or may not be resolved in the coming days).
The pressure will be on Newey to score again with the RB20, especially if the team is indeed moving toward a zero pod design.
The pressure is on for Verstappen to continue what has been one of the strongest seasons in the sport.
But at the end of the day, it’s Perez who faces the most pressure at Red Bull. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, there are hopes that he will fight to keep his job this year. In the minds of many, including Horner, the brief period at the beginning of the season when it looked like Perez could really challenge Verstappen for the title marked the beginning of a tough summer qualifying period for him, and perhaps the driver’s best chance. There would have been more pressure.
How will he hold out considering his job is really at stake?
