I'm in awe of Red Bull
They are going from strength-to-strength while other F1 teams don't even understand how their cars work.
Reigning F1 champions Red Bull have a real shot at winning every race this year. That’s how dominant they are.
Simply being in that position deserves praise all on its own, but it’s not what I’m in awe of.
Red Bull have earned my respect because they are wielding substantial power in F1 at a time when the other major players have dropped the ball.
During the recent Miami Grand Prix weekend, Mercedes and Ferrari both admitted they don’t quite understand how their 2023 cars work.
Then, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi gave a scathing interview to F1.com where he strongly implied that he’d fire the team boss if results don’t start coming soon.
How is it that these giants of the sport are facing such crises when Red Bull is so rosy?
It’s a question that’s even on the mind of Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who told Sky Sports after the Miami race that he was wondering “where are the others?”.
"We've made a normal step, we think, over the winter, and it's more where did Ferrari and Mercedes go?”, he said.
The troubles
On Friday in Miami, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the team’s car was “on a razor’s edge” - and beyond that edge, it was difficult and unpredictable.
“I think the car has some goodness, it's just very tricky to unlock it from a setup point of view and also driving it,” Wolff said.
Comments from Ferrari were nearly identical.
Carlos Sainz said his car was inconsistent, peaky and “on a knife edge”, according to Motor Sport Magazine. “There’s lots of unknowns going on,” he said.
Charles Leclerc said there was only “a very narrow window” to extract performance. The car would go from huge understeer to huge oversteer, “with lots of bottoming and no consistency”, he said.
In Miami, Leclerc put these handling troubles on full display as he crashed in both practice and qualifying.
Others too
It’s not just Mercedes and Ferrari struggling this year.
McLaren have slipped down the order after missing development targets during the winter, while Alpine has not achieved their goal of breaking free from the midfield.
With Alpine, the hope for 2023 was that they’d inch closer to Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
Instead, they’ve endured a messy start to the year.
Alpine’s two drivers collided late in Australia and the team later suffered a horrid weekend in Azerbaijan. In Miami last week, they finished a forgettable 8th and 9th.
According to F1.com, Alpine aren’t where they want to be pace-wise.
The website reported that Alpine had expected to be two seconds faster this year. In reality, they’re only about 0.6 seconds faster.
This lack of progress has frustrated Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, who delivered an extraordinarily public rant about the team in Miami.
He told F1.com that Alpine’s trajectory was bad and the team’s mindset must be fixed immediately.
“I don’t want to give up, but a couple of things need to change,” he said. “People need to realise we are not where we should be.”
Rossi’s scathing words leave little doubt that he wants to be among the frontrunners, ASAP.
But that is a Herculean task for now, considering how far ahead Red Bull are.
The reigning champions have built a beauty of a car for this season.
It has won all five races so far and when Max Verstappen started down the order in Saudi Arabia and Miami, he recovered to the podium without breaking a sweat.
Red Bull should be applauded for being so successful and dominant while other teams are left scratching their heads.