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Why Red Bull walked away from this battle on Newey's advice
Red Bull Racing won 21 out of 22 Grands Prix in 2023 with the RB19. Adrian Newey is still the man behind the scenes at the Austrian team. Speaking to The Race, Newey revealed that there were internal doubts about a rule change before 2023.
In 2022, Formula 1 started the season with completely new regulations. Red Bull Racing came out on top there, although Ferrari was certainly in a good position at the beginning of the season. In 2023, a change was made to the regulations. The rear had to go up 15mm and the diffuser 10mm.
Why Red Bull did not fight the FIA
"Ah, the interesting thing about that was when the change was announced last year we were discussing it internally. Some of our guys were saying, ‘no, we’ve got to really fight this’." While other teams may have been less happy about the sudden rule change, Red Bull decided not to get involved in the fight with the FIA.
"But I took the view that actually in the high-speed corners last year we were probably behind Ferrari. Our car was getting itself into problems in the very high speed so actually that reg change might suit us so we didn’t really push against it too much. It turned out it seems it has suited us," Newey concluded.
Newey's hunch turned out to be pretty accurate. Whereas Red Bull Racing recorded 17 victories in 2022, in 2023 it became a whopping 21, breaking many records, including the all-time record of most dominant season in F1 ever. That was in McLaren' s name from 1988, but is now in the hands of the Austrian racing stable.