Red Bull find way around wind tunnel penalty to get 'free Hungarian GP upgrade'

21 July 2023 , 06:00

903     0

Red Bull have made some aerodynamic upgrades to their RB19 (Image: AP Images)

Red Bull could be more than two-tenths of a second quicker per lap at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix thanks to their latest car upgrades.

That's the prediction made by expert analyst Sam Collins ahead of the Budapest race. He was speaking on F1 TV as he gave his verdict on changes made to the RB19 ahead of this weekend's Grand Prix.

Red Bull have been in their own league so far this season. Their car is the quickest on the grid, often by quite some margin, and they have won all 10 races as a result.

There have been some hints that the gap might have been closing in recent weeks. But they could pull away again thanks to new upgrades that have been introduced.

Describing the changes, Collins said: "I still haven't seen the completed car yet, but what I can say is the side pod is completely different to what we've seen previously. They've gone for a very slit-type radiator duct and completely redesigned the cooling system."

Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"

Team principal Christian Horner said after the Canadian Grand Prix last month that his team is now focussing most of its development efforts on its 2024 car. Still, though, there is still some attention being paid to improving their current machine.

They have had to be economical in the way they do so, however, thanks to their wind tunnel penalty. As punishment for breaching F1 cost cap rules in 2021, they lost 10 per cent of their time in the wind tunnel this year.

Max Verstappen will be very pleased if the upgrades do have such a significant impact (Getty Images)

But, as Collins went on to explain, Red Bull appear to have exploited the rules to their advantage by finding performance gains in a way which did not need any extra time in that aerodynamics simulator.

"He added: "A lot of people are going, 'What about the wind tunnel time?' I think they've been very clever because radiator redesigns don't come out of the wind tunnel allocation, so they've actually got a bit of a free upgrade on that, I think."

And, when assessing what sort of impact the changes could have, he speculated: "That upgrade, I think, is going to be worth more than two-tenths of a second as the season goes on. However, as we saw with Ferrari at the Spanish Grand Prix, when you do a drastic change to a Formula 1 car, it doesn't always work right away. So, perhaps, Red Bull have exposed themselves ever so slightly – at least at first."

Daniel Moxon