F1
THE TEAM BEHIND THE MACHINE
Four races, four wins. Red Bull Racing’s RB19 is quickly shaping up to be one of modern F1’s mightiest machines. But how has it happened?
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Here, five key insiders who have powered the car to the front of the pack unpack the success.
It takes a lot to make the normally circumspect Max Verstappen dip into the realm of hyperbole, but last weekend in Baku, the two-time F1 champion and 2023 championship leader had little alternative. Asked whether Ferrari had managed to close the gap to his Red Bull team over the four-week break in racing following the Australian Grand Prix, the Dutch driver told it like it is.
“Our car is pretty quick,” he said. “I think we finished 20 seconds ahead—something like that. So definitely we have the quickest race car.”
The stats bear him out. Red Bull’s RB19 car has been driven to victory at all four of this season’s opening races, with two wins each for Verstappen and his teammate, Sergio Pérez. The car has finished off the podium just once—in Australia, where Pérez had a rare crash in qualifying. At the season opener in Bahrain, the car in third, the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, crossed the line almost 39 seconds behind race winner Verstappen. And consider that Melbourne, where there was a safety-car finish, has been the only grand prix where the gap between Red Bull and its rivals dipped under 20 seconds.
In short, the RB19 is a beast. But how has that domination fallen into place? To under-stand how Red Bull have, at the moment, carved out an even greater advantage than last year, The Red Bulletin sought out the people who made the RB19 happen—the designers, engineers and mechanics who created a car that just can’t stop winning.
Adrian Newey: Chief Technical Officer
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The Visionary: Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey
Red Bull Racing’s CTO is a Formula1 legend. Having presided over the design of cars that have won 12 Drivers’ and 11 Constructors’ titles, Newey is the sport’s most successful technical wizard and a key part of Red Bull’s current technical dominance. As Team Principal Christian Horner recently explained: “Adrian Newey has been such a fundamental part [of the team] since almost the beginning. He’s just as motivated as he’s always been. Obviously, he has a great interest in what’s going on in [Red Bull] Powertrains, and Red Bull Advanced Technology as well. So he covers the three pillars of the campus in Milton Keynes.” And while in modern Formula 1 there’s no such thing as an old-school auteur—an engineer whose fingerprints are on every aspect of such a complicated proposition—Newey continues to exert a massive influence over the design of Red Bull’s cars, including RB19.
Pierre Waché: Technical Director
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The Architect: Technical Director, Pierre Waché
Pierre Waché leads thesenior technical team behind the design of the RB19—a group that includes Chief Engineering Officer Rob Marshall, Head of Aerodynamics Enrico Balbo and Head of Performance Engineering Ben Waterhouse—and the French engineer is specific about the targets the team had for RB19.
“It was clear that the weight of [last year’s] car was not at the level we wanted. This was a general performance gain,” Waché says. “Second was our capacity to change the weight distribution as a setup tool. With RB18 we had quite a lot of understeering in low-speed corners and we had to improve that situation. And we wanted some more stability in high- speed corners.”
He also says that rules changes for 2023—designed to reduce the porpoising effect seen on some cars in 2022, and which required significant changes to the floor—were met head-on by the team. “It was quite a large change, but we decided to try to recover it by aero development and we have more or less managed that,” he says. “And we gave a lot more margin on the rear suspension, to try to rebalance the car.”
And the outcome? “The aero department did a fantastic job to recover [lost downforce] and to overcome the challenge of the rules,” he says. “It’s clearly a good car, an improvement compared to last year. The main worry now, as an engineer, is that you don’t want that to stop.”
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To keep the momentum, Waché has a clear idea on what must come next. “I think low-speed performance could be improved, because it’s the most efficient way of bringing lap time. We gained quite a lot in high-speed corners compared to last year. Last year, Ferrari were very strong compared to us. But this year I think we lost a little bit at lower speeds, and that is something we have to improve.”
Waché adds that the present advantage is never taken for granted. “The others will find performance,” he says. “They are not stupid, and we expect them to catch up very quickly, so everything we can take, we take.”
ChiefEngineer, Car Engineering: Paul Monaghan
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The Optimizer: ChiefEngineer, Car Engineering, Paul Monaghan
In charge of making sure the team reaches its full potential every race weekend, Paul Monaghan has the task of taking the freshly built RB19 (the cars are deconstructed after each race for checks and built anew at the start of each race weekend) and putting it in the window for victory. He says that while the RB19 was quick out of the box, and continues to be so, it hasn’t been without issues.
“In preseason testing it looked like we had a competitive car, but on Friday at the Bahrain race it was a little difficult to set up,” he says. “But we got it settled. And ultimately, we did appear to have a bit in hand there, which is a rare privilege. However, we also found ourselves in Jeddah with qualifying curtailed for Max as a result of the drive shaft coming out, which was a little disappointing. So we’re far from bulletproof. It was a stark reminder that your ability to be competitive can be removed at any instant.”
Compared to the teething troubles encountered with the RB18 (three DNFs in the opening three races), however, the RB19 is a model of reliability, and Monaghan admits that it is an improvement over its predecessor. “It seems to set up pretty well,” he says. “If we have to, I think we could take on any difficulty on a Friday evening without fear that we’d run out of time to be ready for FP3 on Saturday.”
Monaghan adds that the drivers have found the RB19 a straightforward car to dial in. “We can get a balance on the car quickly and the drivers can be reasonably settled with it,” he says. “So far their feedback has all been constructive, as opposed to ‘this thing’s terrible to drive.’ On the whole, it’s an exceptionally good car at this point in the season.”
Chief Mechanic: Phil Turner
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The Assembler: Chief Mechanic, Phil Turner
The job of building the RB19 each race week is handled by the team’s mechanics, overseen by their chief, Phil Turner, who confirms that working on this year’s car is easier than the RB18. “We can get the gearbox off a lot quicker than last year’s car because of new packaging,” he says. “Obviously, last year’s car was the first of a new era, so it was always going to be a learning process. But this year’s car is a lot more refined in every area.”
Turner’s work on the RB19 starts on the Wednesday of race week when the car build begins. “We build it in pieces,” he says. “We have the chassis side, and the front- end mechanic builds all the internal and external front suspension and fits all the driver controls—the brake pedal, throttle pedal, steering systems, braking systems. The number-one mechanic tends to build all the fuel systems inside the chassis. The second element of the car is the PU [power unit]. We work alongside the PU guys to fit what we call the stage two kit to the engine—basically that includes clutches, oil and water pipes, ERS water systems. And the last bit is the gearbox. We also have a rear-end mechanic, who builds the external suspension and fits the rear wing.”
But despite the complexity, Turner says that the mechanics are already well versed in its assembly. “Everyone is bespoke to their different parts of the car,” he says. “At the start of the year people are learning the new car, but once they’ve done two or three races it becomes second nature. We all thought this year would be a bit tighter at the top, but somehow the RB19 is another step forward. It’s only been a handful of races, but the pace it’s shown has been impressive. I think we’re riding the crest of a wave—and long may it continue.”
Hugh Bird: Sergio Pérez's Race Engineer
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The Guide: Sergio Pérez's Race Engineer
A Formula 1 race engineer is there to help a driver dial in the car to deliver the maximum in qualifying and the race. Each driver has a crew on his side of the garage to work on his car, a performance engineer to sift through the data and a race engineer to stitch it all together into a plan of attack. In Pérez’s case that race engineer is Hugh Bird.
“Arriving at the track, we brief Checo, making sure we agree on the plans for the weekend and the likely setup options available to us,” Bird says. “During Free Practice, we typically work through a run plan, reacting to the performance limitations as we find them based on Checo’s feedback and data analysis from the engineering team.”
On Saturday the work gets more granular. “That’s when we make the final refinements on the setup,” Bird says. “That’s subtle tuning of how we operate the tires and high- lighting small adaptations to Checo’s driving that could make the difference in qualifying.”
On Sunday, the discussions shift to strategy. “The strategy team puts forward its plans for the race at a group meeting,” Bird says. “It’s important that everyone understands the plan, so we can communicate during the race as we adapt to the unfolding situation. One of the most important things I do is to keep Checo updated on how the race is panning out and make sure he is well informed on the bigger picture.”
Bird says that the RB19 makes everything easier. “It’s the best car I’ve ever worked on,” he says. “The results speak for themselves. From a race engineer’s perspective, it addresses some of the major handling deficiencies we had in recent years without compromising performance”
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