Has Red Bull already killed all the suspense?

Facts : Reigning world champion for Drivers and Manufacturers, the team Red Bull made a strong impression during the winter tests in Sakhir (February 23-25). To the point of having already removed all suspense from the 2023 season which opens this weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix (March 3-5)?

YES, by Julien Billiotte

As a pre-boomer and post-Millennial, I've already followed enough campaigns F1 to know that the queen discipline of motorsport works in cycles (thank you Captain Obvious, some will retort aptly). With a few exceptions of course.

At the risk of disappointing you, I am afraid that we have left an era of domination Mercedes to enter a new golden age of Red Bull.

The handover between Mercedes and the Red Bull was sublime in 2021 with a fight at the top between Max Verstappen et Lewis Hamilton (despite the bitter ending that we know).

Ironically, the aerodynamic revolution introduced in 2022 and designed to narrow the gaps on the track allowed the Milton Keynes (UK) team to distance itself from the competition. The brilliant Adrian Newey, true Professor Tourneflower of F1, still has the sacred fire!

Even with a sluggish start to the season (double retirement at the Bahrain GP, ​​0 points in two of the first three races of the year for Verstappen), Red Bull and Mad Max then disgusted their rivals and put an end to all suspense even before the start of the season. summer.

Imagine if they successfully take off in 2023, which seems highly likely given the serenity and ease experienced during the three days of winter testing. 

The upcoming season is set to feature a record calendar of 23 races. But God it will be long if, as I fear, the Flying Dutchman knocks out the competition from the start.

My eminent colleague Jérémy believes that a season is never a foregone conclusion. I would simply answer that I had little doubt (and neither did he!) about the identity of the 2020 world champion before the first start.

NO, by Jérémy Satis

Let's not lie to ourselves. In the light of testing, the weekend ahead could resemble a solo ride for Red Bull and Max Verstappen. But does that mean the entire season will be of this ilk? Obviously not! First of all, there were only three short days of winter testing, which is very little and above all insufficient for everyone to have had time to assess the potential of their car.

We obviously also do not know the quantity of gasoline loaded by each, nor the programs carried out by each. Mercedes has done some laps in the C5, but it's hard to imagine that the tank was not at least loaded. His race simulations, on the contrary, seemed very correct. Ferrari, for his part, did not push a lap on the last day, and the newfound power of his engine will undoubtedly be a real plus in the straights, which was his weak point last year . Without even talking aboutAston Martin andAlpine, the two X factors of this start of the season from which we are not sure that they have good surprises in store for us.

Even if Verstappen were to pack a suitcase for everyone next Saturday and Sunday, F1 has the wonderful thing that performance is always relative and never absolute, and that there will be 22 Grands Prix left for the competition to try to respond and bring closer. Red Bull itself, moreover, had not started on the back foot last year in the face of a car irresistible red before drastically reversing the trend and almost taking everything behind?

The general tightening of the peloton towards which we are tending and while we are in year II of the regulatory and technical revolution should also allow the competition to be closer to Red Bull and to annoy it as much as possible. Never has a season ended before the first Grand Prix. And there is absolutely no reason for that to be the case this year.