Rumors

Red Bull may have been driving ten horsepower less in Australia

Remarkable: 'Red Bull's gap was smaller due to 10 hp less'

4 April 2023 at 19:24
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  • GPblog.com

A remarkable story, Red Bull Racing reportedly drove with less engine power in Australia. Max Verstappen won the crazy race at the Albert Park Circuit, but the time differences seemed smaller than in previous weeks. F1 journalist Giuliano Duchessa tells a remarkable story.

Red Bull with ten horsepower less?

The F1 journalist from the Italian Corriere dello Sport, among others, wrote in a tweet after the race: "The gap of Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari compared to Verstappen seems to have decreased by two to three tenths due to a less favourable set-up. The gap has not just narrowed. According to an engineer from a rival team, Red Bull was largely driving with ten hp less."

Duchessa offers no further explanation for the comment, saying only that the team may thus have run the engines less agressive in Melbourne. Completely unthinkable it is not. Firstly, judging from the first few races, there do seem to be some minor problems with the powertrain of Verstappen's RB19. The Dutchman had problems with downshifting in the first two races. Possibly this was taken care of with the engine downshifting.

Verstappen already explained smaller gap

If there would be a place where Red Bull could do this, it was in Australia. After all, Red Bull seems to have an extremely efficient DRS, and with Australia's four DRS zones, the possibly downshifted RB19 could still be fast.

George Russell explained the narrowed gap between Mercedes and Red Bull by stating that Verstappen and Sergio Perez's team are deliberately not showing full speed for fear of an FIA investigation. Verstappen dismissed these speculations as nonsense, stating that in Australia there was simply no need to drive the RB19 very hard. Keeping the tyres under control was much more important.