Red Bull aero wizard Adrian Newey explains what took him 'by complete surprise' in 2023

Red Bull aero wizard Adrian Newey feels that the kind of dominance the team enjoyed in 2023 took him by surprise. The Austrian outfit won the title in 2022 and was dominant as driver Max Verstappen won 15 races and broke the record for most race wins in a season.

There was, however, some competition from Mercedes and Ferrari that year. Mercedes even beat Red Bull and Max Verstappen in Brazil by winning the race. The field was supposed to close up and the gap that Red Bull enjoyed was supposed to shrink in 2023.

But surprisingly, both Mercedes and Ferrari persisted with their inherently limited car concepts. As a result, neither team made much progress as Red Bull marched ahead, with Verstappen and company ending up winning as many as 21 of the 22 races last year.

Newey admitted that such dominance from Red Bull was a major surprise for him in 2023.

“RB18, the first car under the new regulations, I think we managed to get fundamentals right in terms of how we approached the design, the research process, the architecture of the car in terms of its layout and so forth. We managed to come out with a decent car that we then developed through ’22 and we obviously had a very strong second half of the season in ’22," he said on the Talking Bulls podcast.

"In ’23, the second season of those new regulations, we completely expected the grid to close up. “Last year took all of us – me most of all – by complete surprise. I really didn’t expect the domination that we had. This year, from what I understand, a lot of our rivals have taken a good look this time and I suspect there’ll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car,” Newey added.

"Our car will be very much a third evolution of the ’22 car" - Red Bull aero head

The Red Bull aero head also talked about what the concept was going to be and claimed that the car was going to be an evolution of the previous one.

Newey did admit that there was a certain level of nervousness on whether an evolution turns out to be the right step, with the team soon to find that out in the upcoming season.

“Our car will be very much a third evolution of the ’22 car. Last year’s car was an evolution of the ’22, the main points [of difference] being the normal winter development in terms of aerodynamics and some understanding on what we needed to do with suspension to try to improve the car as well, and getting weight out of it – because we never got down to the weight limit in ’22," he said.

"This year’s car is the third evolution of that original RB18. Now what we don’t know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative while others have done something different? You just don’t know,” Newey added.

Red Bull is currently going through turmoil because of the internal investigation involving Christian Horner. The team would, however, still start the 2024 season as the favorite to win both titles.