Almighty Max Verstappen Warned of the Resurrection of His F1 Victims as 2023 Uncertainties Loom

With an overhaul of regulations in 2022, Red Bull emerged dominantly victorious. Only Ferrari briefly came close to giving them competition. However, things do not look as rosy for the defending champions, Mercedes. With massively reduced time in the wind tunnel and other teams making steady progress, the Bulls are on the wrong side of the forecast. Can the Raging Bull still be the fastest in 2023?

There are two factors pulling the Austrian team away from developing as brilliant a car as they did in the 2022 season. First, is the handicap rule. F1 introduced progressive performance convergence. It gives the champion team the least amount of time for development work in the wind tunnel. Second, the champion team has been forced to serve a penalty due to the breach of the budget cap in the 2021 season. 

With these difficulties in places for Red Bull, pundits are projecting Mercedes and Ferrari as front runners to dethrone the 2022 World Champions.

“I like to think that next year there could be a three-way fight for the title. Regardless of how strong Max was at the end of 2022, the foundations were laid for 2023. In my opinion, the teams will be much closer than we saw at the beginning of the season.” said David Coulthard in an interview with Mirror Sport.

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The only team in 2022 which put up competition to Red Bull was the Maranello-based outfit. On the other hand, the Silver Arrows developed a car with top-tier reliability, but it was plagued by porpoising issues. Keeping their heads down, they kept pushing to develop their car. The Mercedes drivers initially struggled to make it to Q3 in initial qualifying but then bounced back strong in the second half to finish 1-2 in Brazil. The car development for the Silver Arrows made sure that the battle became a triple threat and brought the heat to the competition.

Though Red Bull completely dominated the grid in 2022, there are people in the paddock who feel that it’ll be difficult for the Raging Bull to mimic Mercedes’ success.

A Difficult Task for Red Bull to Replicate the Silver Arrow Dominance

The turbo-hybrid era saw the Silver Arrows dominate the sport in an unprecedented manner. The only team to be as dominant, in a single season, has been Red Bull in 2022. Many saw this supremacy as the beginning of something new. However, the defending world champions are not overestimating themselves in the face of the double restrictions they are handed.

As per Motorsport.com, Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan said, “Obviously I think we will still be competitive next year. But if the question is whether we can repeat what we’re doing right now, I’m not sure.” There is either a great amount of self-awareness in the team or just them downplaying before they launch another beast on the track.

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With projections favoring more teams to be in the mix for the battle, the forthcoming season is will be far from boring. What are your thoughts about the forthcoming season? Let us know in the comments below.