Adrian Newey feels Oracle Red Bull Racing in hindsight may have put too much time in developing their 2021 car that took Max Verstappen to his maiden Drivers’ Championship, which ultimately limited the development time of the 2022 RB18.
Whereas some teams stopped development of their 2021 machines early to allow full concentration on the new aerodynamic regulations coming in for the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, Red Bull continued to develop the RB16B to give Verstappen the best opportunity to claim the Drivers’ title ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Despite the RB18 becoming the most successful car of Newey’s career – it took victory in seventeen of the twenty-two races during the 2022 season – the Chief Technical Officer at the Milton Keynes-based squad admitted the time focused on the RB16B compromised them and meant a lot of work needed to be done in a short amount of time ahead of the new season.
“We had quite a short development period, particularly because we kept developing last year’s car in the battle for the championship, arguably longer than we should have done,” said Newey to Motorsport.com.
“That gave us a lot to do over the winter. What we tried to focus on was getting the fundamentals of the car right as this year’s car, and then hoping that would give us the development potential to kind of refine it.
“That’s fortunately how it panned out.”
Newey felt Scuderia Ferrari went into the 2022 season with the best car, but Red Bull were completely focused on making its RB18 work on all tracks, and so it proved as it won ten of the final eleven races to easily beat their rivals to the Constructors’ Championship.
“In reality, Ferrari, in pre-season, were probably quicker,” Newey added. “We had a very good, effective first race upgrade.
“That made it very close, and then it was really a tight battle early on. Ferrari were quicker in some races, we were quicker in others.
“We learned from that and tried to make a well-rounded car for the second half of the season, to make sure that it worked on all circuits. I think we all collectively did a decent job there.”
