
If we asked you to name one stand-out team for the 2023 F1 season, there’s no doubt that you would say Red Bull. Breaking their own record of the most consecutive wins in a season, a relentless hunt for the perfect 10/10 record, and the Constructors’ Championship already in their pocket with 6 races remaining, Red Bull has been a step ahead the entire season. Yet, if there is one blip in this stellar portfolio, it is the Singapore Grand Prix, where Ferrari and Carlos Sainz stopped Max Verstappen from getting 11 straight wins.
The poor showing for Red Bull came at a weekend when the FIA re-iterated the rules on “movable body parts” for the cars. The FIA recently noticed teams getting creative with the flexi-regulations and decided to re-check wing designs before the weekend.
It was suspected that some teams were employing hidden mechanisms to gain an unfair speed advantage. The focus was on rubber bodywork, which aids localised deflection. Teams may have been using the ambiguous wording of the rule to design rubber parts that move closer to the ground, thus providing the car with greater speed on the straights without the risk of the car part being too worn out.
The FIA updated the wording to clarify the rule to ensure no such hidden tricks were at play.
This year, Singapore was a challenge for the Bulls, having both cars knocked out in Q2, the team’s first since Russia 2018. The race did not fare much better, although the team did mention the improvement in race pace. However, a gamble on the tyre strategy paired with ill-timed Safety Cars gave their rivals a free pit stop ahead of Max Verstappen.
Team Principal Christian Horner believed that the simulations leading up to the weekend did not give them a clear idea about the race conditions and teams were much closer than expected during the practice sessions. Max Verstappen simply called the race “unlucky” as he tried his best to gain positions throughout the race, ultimately finishing 5th.
The timing of the rulebook update was conspicuously close to the Singapore race weekend ahead. After Red Bull’s subpar performance at Marina Bay, fans questioned whether the rule change was responsible for it.
When asked what impact the technical directives had on their performance over the weekend, Horner’s reply was simple, “Zero”. No changes were made to either Red Bull machinery, meaning that the FIA found the team to be compliant with all regulations.
However, Red Bull’s true response to flexi-wing speculation was the Japanese Grand Prix the following week. Max Verstappen was back to winning ways, this time not just for himself but also for his team. He topped all three practice sessions, bagged pole position and then went on to win the Grand Prix with a gap of more than 19 seconds to runner-up Lando Norris. His win secured the Constructors’ Championship for Red Bull, a back-to-back title adding to their new total of six
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