The photo of the Red Bull car that can change the Formula 1 season

During Q1 of the Monaco GP, Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull crashed at Santa Devota. Initially, it was only a minor incident with no significant impact beyond the World Cup qualifying. However, when the crane operator lifted the car several meters above the ground, many curious onlookers captured some secret details of the flat bottom that the team led by Adrian Newey and Pierre Waché had designed. A similar incident had already occurred with the Hamilton and Sainz cars earlier that weekend. The comparison between the RB19′s complex air ducts and the relatively flat floors of the W14 and SF-23 did not favor the latter. The design teams are now working with one mantra: 70% of the downforce generated by this generation of single-seaters comes from the ground. The secret of Red Bull perhaps lies therein.

“I hope so; we don’t want to miss out on the opportunity,” Sainz acknowledged the potential for extracting information from photographs, and the team leaders took it a step further. Andrea Stella, McLaren’s top team member who has previously served as chief engineer, provided a response. “I spent a lot of time looking at the images, but McLaren’s hundred aerodynamic engineers will spend even more. It’s very interesting indeed and demonstrates its development’s complexity and quality. When I saw it, I took my hat off to Red Bull. I can understand why they have that level of benefits.”

The head of Ferrari, Vasseur, diminishes the significance of something: “I think we all have a lot of photos of the rest of the cars, but it is quite difficult or almost impossible to try to copy something. Because the concept of the car influences globally, more than anything else, and you can’t just copy a part of the car.” At Aston Martin’s helm, Mike Krack adds: “You always look at what the rivals are doing and their new parts. I also looked at the front of the Ferrari, and it’s always the same.”

McCullough, Aston Martin performance director, adds: “You learn a lot just from watching the plate wear down, what it’s touching (the asphalt). There are a lot of excited aerodynamicists taking a look at all of that.” “With these rules, the most important thing is what we don’t see so that everyone will be reviewing those images,” said Mercedes chief track engineer Andrew Shovlin. The comments in the pit lane all share a common trend. Whether other factories can replicate the complex flat bottom design seen in Verstappen and Pérez’s Red Bull car remains to be seen.