What GPS statistics reveal about Red Bull’s domination
Red Bull unquestionably has the fastest car since the beginning of the season. By delving deeply into the data, we can identify the areas where the RB19 surpasses its competitors.
Bahrain, Jeddah, and then Melbourne, Red Bull has had a perfect start to the season. The reigning double world champion Max Verstappen won the opening race in Bahrain ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez, while Fernando Alonso was the highest-placed non-RB19 driver, finishing 38.637 seconds behind the winner. In Saudi Arabia, Perez reversed the roles for Red Bull and emerged victorious, with Alonso once again being the best of the others, trailing by 20.728 seconds after Aston Martin appealed his penalty.
Red Bull on a comfortable mattress
Very difficult for the competition to compete with the RB19. If we add to that the untapped potential of Verstappen when his engineer asks him to control », Red Bull could boast a gap of over a minute with the other cars. This helps better understand the performance of the Austrian team at the beginning of the season.
In Melbourne, the race results led Lewis Hamilton to finish second to Verstappen with a gap of only 0.179s. But once again, the dominance of Red Bull left no doubt. Without one of the red flags or the new starts, and without Checo Pérez’s poor start in Jeddah, or if the RB19s hadn’t managed their pace while being far ahead, the gap would be even greater. So where does Red Bull excel over the competition? Or rather, where do the others struggle?
At Ferrari, the first three races and the upcoming race in Baku are all identified as races that do not suit the Ferrari SF-23. The asphalt is too abrasive in Sakhir, Jeddah is too dominated by straight-line speed, and Melbourne is too disrupted by crashes. According to Fred Vasseur, the team director, it is important to understand that three races do not represent the complete range of circuits.
However, the concern for Red Bull’s rivals is that the RB19 has not been affected by any of these circumstances.
A RB19 that adapts well
The advantage of 0.3 seconds that Verstappen had over Charles Leclerc to secure the pole position at the Bahrain GP was determined by the RB19’s quick low-end acceleration and its superior pace in medium-speed corners. Therefore, it didn’t matter that Verstappen was sometimes slower in the straight line compared to a Ferrari.
This marks a major change compared to how Red Bull fared last season, when the Honda engine couldn’t immediately overcome the heavy chassis and was often outperformed in acceleration by the lighter Ferrari.
The second thing to note is the difference in behavior of the RB19 in Saudi Arabia. With the use of DRS by Red Bull, Pérez set the fastest lap time by 0.155s. The Mexican driver built his success on the first lap by allowing the Ferrari to pull away in high-speed direction changes, before coming back in the lead with a 5 miles per hour advantage in top speed.
In Australia, during the Q3 showdown between Verstappen and Russell, the former claimed pole position by a margin of 0.236s. This advantage was gained through better straight-line performance while maintaining higher speeds in more open corner sequences, only to lose out to the Mercedes in slower sections. In the race, once Russell was out, Verstappen enjoyed a 0.162s per lap advantage over Hamilton between laps 20 and 53. And this doesn’t even account for the fact that the Dutch driver eased off to preserve his tires.
Finally, unlike last season where the Ferrari could come out of corners faster than the Red Bull, no weaknesses in terms of this have yet been shown in the RB19. Alonso, with very late braking points and his ability to accelerate early, is dominating the exercise. But the data shows that even though it is not quite at the same level, the RB19 does not collapse in this area.
