Why Red Bull's biggest F1 adversary is now itself

OPINION: Red Bull continued its 100% record in 2023 by notching another 1-2 finish in Jeddah, this time headed by Sergio Perez after Max Verstappen's problems in qualifying. With the opposition seemingly resigned to a year of domination from the Milton Keynes team, it now must keep a handle on reliability and potential simmering tensions between its drivers

Lewis Hamilton spoke for many people in Saudi Arabia on Sunday when he suggested that Red Bull's advantage in Formula 1 this year is greater than any he had seen in his career. In the RB19, Red Bull has produced a simply stunning car that is a step and a half in front of everyone else.

It's super quick in a straight line (its DRS-open state was what especially caught Hamilton's attention) and it derives a further lap time advantage over the opposition by being so fast in the slow and medium-speed corners, which count much more as a percentage of lap time than the high-speed turns.

Share Or Save This Story

Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.