How do you stop a charging bull? In Withnail & I Paul McGann’s character Marwood encounters one escaping from his field in the Lake District and is advised to “grab it by the ring” and “leave it behind”. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with the type of bull designed by Adrian Newey, who spent a season running loose on racetracks around the world.
There has never been anything like Red Bull’s dominance in Formula 1 this year: 21 wins in 22 races, 30 podiums, 11 fastest laps, five sprint wins. And this was with a car they stopped developing in the summer so they could focus on next year.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit were simply unstoppable. Their 860 points were more than double Mercedes’ second place finish with 409 points.
So why would they stop here? Red Bull has the best car, the best design team (horrifyingly, Newey devotes “half his time” to F1 these days, with Frenchman Pierre Waché currently in the race), the most experienced team principal and the best driver.
Max Verstappen took 19 of the 21 wins this year, the most among all pilots in a single season. He has led more than 1,000 laps, becoming the first in history to do so. The Dutch driver, who is only 26 years old, has won 54 races. Only Michael Schumacher (91) and Lewis Hamilton (103) are ahead of him on the all-time list.
How fast Verstappen catches them will depend on how fast everyone else can catch Red Bull. This seems unlikely at the moment. There will be no major changes to the technical regulations next year, meaning the cars will be this year’s evolution. As previously mentioned, Red Bull started focusing on next year’s car in July. “The biggest change we’ve had since then has been the appearance changes,” joked Christian Horner at a press conference in Abu Dhabi.
Of course, this does not make it impossible to catch them. Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin are hoping to make gains over the winter. And they can all point to reasons why it might happen.
Mercedes is completely overhauling the vehicle concept, so who knows what they might do? This is a risk, as Toto Wolff admitted in Abu Dhabi. But they have to do it if they want to have any chance of beating Red Bull before 2026.
Ferrari under Frédéric Vasseur looked tighter and finished the season strongly.
McLaren was the most improved team of 2023. The Woking team will have a new wind tunnel and simulator in place next season, not to mention a new coach in Rob Marshall, who comes as assistant from Red Bull.
Aston Martin also has a new state-of-the-art factory and a new wind tunnel nearby.
All four will have extra time in the wind tunnel compared to Red Bull, as they finished lower than them in the constructors’ championship.
The problem is that all these teams have made profits by copying Red Bull this season. And when you copy a team, you are bound to be behind them in the development curve. If anyone wants to beat Red Bull in the short to medium term, they will need to start taking risks ahead of the next edition in 2026 and try to do things before Red Bull. Not easy.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown acknowledged this at a media brunch in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, saying he felt his team had become stronger and bolder under new team boss Andrea Stella. “There’s a real ‘Let’s do this’ attitude,” he said. “We can see the energy in the team. We talk about ‘taking more risks’ and ‘being better, not just that good’.”
Of course, there are levers that can be pulled from car design. Political levers. Following the F1 Commission Meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, there was a lot of talk about a team possibly based in Milton Keynes finding a ‘financial loophole’ in this year’s budget cap. It may be closed this winter.
Another important topic discussed after the F1 Commission meeting was Red Bull’s relationship with Alpha Tauri; Some teams suspected they were sharing more than the rules allowed, and Alpha Tauri could be a test bed for some Red Bull upgrades. Horner flatly denied this after the Abu Dhabi race, insisting they were scrupulous about only sharing what was allowed. But there will certainly be pressure on the FIA to effectively police this area in the future.
Long term, many teams want the commercial rights holder to change the Concorde Agreement to prohibit any organization from owning two teams.
But this is 2026 again. Until next year? It’s hard to see anyone stopping Red Bull. There was an aero testing ban this year and look what they achieved. They are one-two in the drivers’ standings for the first time, and this is with a second driver who could be replaced by a stronger one if he does not start the next season satisfactorily. Perhaps the best solution is to simply throw your hands in the air and scream, as Marwood finally figured out in Withnail & I.
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