The new season of the Formula 1 World Championship starts

The new season of the Formula 1 World Championship actually starts on Thursday. On this day, the first free races will take place in Bahrain, qualifying will take place on Friday, and the race itself is scheduled for Saturday. The main question before the start of the championship is exactly the same as always: who will win? It seems that there is no need to wait for a sensation. Red Bull team leader Max Verstappen should go for his fourth consecutive title with confidence.

The 2023 World Championship turned out to be the most boring of all that Formula 1 has held in its 75 years of existence. In the history of the series, there were significant periods of time marked by the total dominance of one or another driver. For example, the seemingly endless victories of Michael Schumacher from 2000 to 2004. Or almost a decade that passed under the sign of Mercedes dominance (from 2014 to 2020, Lewis Hamilton brought six titles to the German team, and Nico Rosberg added another). But in the 2023 season, Red Bull team leader Max Verstappen has demonstrated a whole new meaning to the term dominance. After all, he won 19 of the 22 stages that took place, breaking all performance records for the season along the way.

However, with all due respect to Verstappen’s talent, it would be reckless to explain his success solely by “natural” speed. It’s just that the Dutchman had at his disposal a car that allowed him to realize his talent especially clearly. So the key author of Red Bull’s dominance in recent years is not Verstappen, but the team’s chief designer Adrian Newey. And even if Red Bull didn’t have Verstappen, the team’s number two, Sergio Perez, would be the champion in 2023. Yes, he made a lot of mistakes, the seat, in the sense of the place, under him at Red Bull is still shaky, but he could, being a real average peasant, become the world champion if it weren’t for Verstappen. Well, he remained only the vice-champion.

Actually, the key question of the off-season was how the teams would respond to Red Bull’s dispiriting dominance. They answered quite predictably, trying to the best of their ability to copy last year’s version of the “bulls” machine. The technical regulations, by and large, have not changed, so such “copying” made sense. It is clear that the most interesting thing in the copying source is hidden from prying eyes and complete cloning is out of the question. But the combination of visual data the teams collected from watching Red Bull still allowed them to depict something resembling a championship car. So you shouldn’t be surprised that in the new season all the cars will in one way or another bear in their appearance traces, and even large quotes from the 2023 Red Bull supercar. But there is a nuance here.

The above-mentioned Adrian Newey is not just considered the genius of modern Formula 1 – the cars he designed account for a record 12 victories in the Constructors’ Championship. By primary education, Mr. Newey is an aerodynamic engineer. And he is obviously very good at his specialty. Adrian Newey came to Red Bull in 2006, took a long time to get used to it, but in 2010 he produced a completely unimaginable unit that brought Sebastian Vettel four championship titles in a row. Then the era of turbo engines returned, Mercedes was the best prepared for it, choking everyone with the power of the engine, so Newey’s star faded somewhat. But as soon as Formula 1 changed the technical regulations again and again brought aerodynamics to the fore (in 2022 the so-called ground effect was again allowed), the era of dominance of Newey’s cars returned. With this, Verstappen won both the last and the world championships without question. And what has always distinguished Adrian Newey is unexpected decisions, innovations that wedge into unprotected areas of the regulations. It looks like Newey will make another such seemingly strange decision in the coming season.

The new car of the Red Bull team, last year’s version of which everyone copied so intensely, in the coming season turned out to be completely different from what the copyists were targeting. It’s funny, but the new version of Red Bull is very similar to the failed Mercedes of 2022. The Red Bull bosses suddenly liked the unpromising scheme, recognized by the German team after two seasons of torment. A couple of years ago, side pontoons sloping almost to zero, as Mercedes engineers believed, should have given the cars more speed on the straights. But they only brought a terrifying “goat”, which they could not cope with for a long time, and a wild loss of speed. However, one should not assume that Red Bull will face the same difficulties that Mercedes once faced, although team representatives make it clear that they will not be surprised if the car suddenly starts to “goat” at some stages.

“They really adapted some solutions from our car,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. “Not only the “zero” pontoons, but also the engine compartment lid. What we called the Great Wall. It’s not aesthetically the most beautiful, but it’s not without meaning. But the real power is below, hidden from view. These are ground effect cars!”

Projects are projects, but until the car is on the track, it is impossible to understand its real potential. Formula 1 teams had little opportunity to test their decisions before the start of the season. Actually, in Bahrain they assessed the effectiveness of their actions in the winter. But for now it turns out that we shouldn’t expect any sensations in the fight for the title. The Red Bull drivers were very convincing during the tests.

The team’s work has not yet been affected in any way by the situation surrounding its boss Christian Horner. The management of the Red Bull concern is conducting an investigation against him based on a statement from a certain team employee who declared “an aggressive management style” (later unconfirmed reports of sexual harassment appeared).

So, most likely, like a year ago, the real fight will be for the title of second after Verstappen. However, even here the list of applicants is limited. In addition to Sergio Perez, Max Verstappen’s team-mate, it includes both Ferrari drivers – Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, as well as two Mercedes representatives – seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The most interesting thing is how Hamilton will perform. After all, this is his last season in the German team – from 2025 he will move to Ferrari, where he will replace Sainz. By the way, Hamilton’s departure is a clear indicator that the driver does not believe in the prospects of his current employer. After all, since 2007, when Hamilton made his debut in Formula 1, he has been invariably associated with Mercedes – the company acted as a supplier of engines for McLaren, in which the Briton took his first title, and then acquired its own team, which put Hamilton on a par with Schumacher himself .

Alexander Petrov