Red Bull Racing won the constructors’ title for the first time in nine years at the 2022 F1 World Championship. It was the opposite of nine years ago, when a drastic regulation change was introduced.
Red Bull Racing won the double title with Sebastian Vettel from 2010 to 2013. However, it fell from the throne in 2014 when the V6 turbo hybrid was introduced, and Mercedes F1, which obtained the strongest power unit from there, achieved eight consecutive victories.
In 2022, a regulation change was introduced that redesigned the F1 machine to the ground effect concept. But unlike nine years ago, Red Bull Racing responded well. Mercedes F1, by contrast, failed to comply with the regulations and fell from the throne.
Red Bull F1’s teak technical officer Adrian Newey and team principal Christian Horner explain how the team has bounced back from 2014’s predicament.
“The 2010-2013 championship years were all won by Renault V8 engines,” Newey told RedBull.com.
“We had a great relationship with the engineers at Renault. It’s fair to say they didn’t have the most powerful V8, but it was a product they tailored to our car. had specific requirements, especially the way exhausts were used, and they were bent at the rear to maximize what was needed from the engine.”
“Then we entered the hybrid era and in the first year, 2014, Renault did not interpret the regulations as well as Mercedes. , the new regulations, everyone makes mistakes.
“It was a pretty disillusioning moment when the early 2015 engine looked, if anything, worse than the 2014 engine. Then in the near future if you do a great job you’ll get some weird wins here and there. I realized I could do it, but I never won a championship.”
“It was a reset that we all had to accept after a period of domination in late 2009 and four championships after that.”
“You learn where your strengths and weaknesses are,” says Christian Horner.
“Like Adrian said, that period was tough because we fell from four dominant championships and suddenly we have this barren period and another team is a few lights better than the other. Because he was ahead of his time.”
“The most important thing was to bring the team together and focus on everything we could control and influence.
“Every season we started winning a little bit more, but there was always the problem of ‘we need to make sure we have the right power unit’.”
Red Bull Racing decided to install Honda’s F1 engine, which had been proven in Toro Rosso for a year in 2019. Max Verstappen won the drivers’ title in 2021 with a works engine designed for their machine again, leading to a double title in 2022.
“The engine in 2019 was a step forward and after that we were able to lay the groundwork for a championship challenge.”
Category: F1 / red bull / Renault