Newey lights Ferrari and Lotus

The start of the 2013 season saw the Italian team win the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai and the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona thanks to Fernando Alonso, while Lotus and Kimi Räikkönen won the opening round at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia. A period where the RB9 of Red Bull did not dominate as much as in the last seven races, all won handily by Sebastian Vettel.

Adrian Newey, technical director of Red Bull Racing, made a statement that risks causing noise in the paddocks. For him, “it was pure and simple luck” that his rivals were able to beat his cars. “Pirelli introduced a new one this winter which was much more sensitive, much easier to overload and since most of a lap consists of braking phases and fast corners, where the tires take a significant load, we don't could not properly exploit these envelopes,” explains the former resident of Williams et McLaren. “This tire change penalized us and helped certain teams. Lotus and Ferrari made noise by announcing that they had been smart during last winter. But for me, they were lucky. We had a little less success, and then, of course, politics took over.”

Indeed, after the events of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone at the beginning of July, and the famous tire explosions, Pirelli decided to return to a structure close to that of last year. This return from Hungary, at the end of July, led to a drop in performance of the “black and gold” single-seaters and especially of the Italian cars. Alone Mercedes, taken as we recall in the affair of illegal testing in Barcelona, ​​managed to maintain a certain level of competitiveness against Red Bull before the reaction of Lotus for four races.

The much bigger changes coming next year, with the arrival of the new regulations introducing turbo V6s and the new single-seaters built accordingly, could in a way redistribute the cards in F1, although some players in the industry believe that Red Bull will maintain a certain margin ahead of its rivals.