Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, Silverstone, 2019

Why Red Bull vs Ferrari is now the championship fight to watch

2019 F1 season

Posted on

| Written by

After Red Bull showed Pierre Gasly the door during the summer break they made it clear they believe they can take the fight to Ferrari in the second half of 2019.

Since then they’ve not been able to deliver on that potential. Two wins have seen Ferrari nearly doubled their points advantage over Red Bull from 44 to 85. But that could be all about to change.

The long straights of Spa and Monza were always going to favour Ferrari more than Red Bull. Over the remaining races the impetus should swing back in Red Bull’s favour, beginning at Singapore, a track where they have consistently been strong in the past.

Red Bull slipped back from their rivals at the beginning of the season. Comparing their performance year-on-year, the team wasn’t as competitive as it had been 12 months earlier. But since the Austrian Grand Prix, thanks to gradual improvements with its Honda power unit and aerodynamics, Red Bull has made impressive gains year-on-year, even at tracks not usually considered their strongest.

The graph below shows how Red Bull’s pace deficit has changed year-on-year. The progress it has made since its home race is unmistakable:

Looking ahead, Red Bull enjoyed some of its most competitive outings of 2018 over the final third of the year. These included not only Singapore but Mexico, where they took pole position.

The team used the last two races to fit Honda’s latest spec four power unit and digest the associated penalties. From here on in they should be fighting at the front again, though Max Verstappen is wary not to get carried away.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

“I find it really difficult because sometimes it looks like we are more competitive than [at] other tracks,” he said. “So I don’t want to say that from now onwards every track we go we can benefit.”

However he admitted that even at Monza, where the shambles during qualifying meant the team’s true potential wasn’t seen, showed an encouraging step forwards for the RB15.

“A fresh engine for sure helps a lot,” he said. “Even my lap on [Saturday] morning: I only had a tow into turn one, the rest of my lap I was on my own, some of the guys around me had a tow all over the lap. So we looked really competitive.

“In a way I was a bit disappointed to take a penalty but of course I didn’t know this was going to happen that we would be so competitive because I think if we look to last year we were one-and-a-half seconds behind in qualifying which is of course massive. I think we definitely made some good steps forward this weekend with the engine and the car all weekend seemed to be performing really well.”

Now come the tracks where Verstappen knows the Red Bull should be a more competitive prospect. Whether the team can close that 85-point gap to Ferrari will rest on Verstappen returning to his superb pre-summer break form – and whether Alexander Albon is up to the task he was hired for as Gasly’s replacement.

While Ferrari have the points advantage, the form guide suggests they’re going to be fighting a rearguard action against Red Bull over the final rounds. While the championship titles may be destined for the silver team, the fight for the runner-up spot looks like being the most absorbing contest of the final third of the season.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season

Browse all 2019 F1 season articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

21 comments on “Why Red Bull vs Ferrari is now the championship fight to watch”

  1. This is the battle that many of us have been looking forward to for quite some time and fortunately RBR finally made the decision to move PU suppliers as clearly they had been on the back foot since 2014.

    With them now being able to compete not only with Ferrari but also Mercedes as most tracks, we have the potential for some proper 3 way battles, with two young guns really pushing Hamilton to fight for wins. Add to that the fact that Vettel is still pretty good as well as Bottas and the possibility that Albon might well be able to get between some of the players and we have a very juicy few races coming up.

    I really feel for Albon – the pressure he’ll be under to be up there close to Max will be pretty immense. If he rises to it, and so far he’s been reasonable, he’ll cement himself quite a future but it could easily go the other way leaving him pretty exposed along the lines that Bottas has been when Hamilton finds that extra gear when he needs to.

    Nevertheless, it’s absolutely great to see the front of the field tightening up as has been expected given we’re near the end of the current regulations. Hopefully it will be even tighter in 2020 given that there’s not been a lot of change to the technical regulations for next year.

    Excited … you bet.

    1. @dbradock, it should be borne in mind that there are strong rumours in the Japanese press that Red Bull will be taking another round of engine penalties in Sochi.

      The reason for that is because that race is followed by the Japanese Grand Prix, and Honda wants a particularly strong performance from all of the cars that it supplies at its home race – so, to help with that, Red Bull (and probably Toro Rosso as well) are going to take an engine penalty to have a fresh engine for Japan, with the indication it’ll probably be run fairly hard for that race too (i.e. sacrificing longevity for outright performance).

      If that is the case, it does mean that there is a reasonable chance Ferrari will gain an advantage in Russia – so although they’re likely to gain on Ferrari in Singapore, they might then end up going back to roughly where they are now if they are taking penalties in Sochi. That might leave them having to chase down around 80 points over the final five races – at about 16 points a race, it wouldn’t be impossible to achieve, but at the same time it wouldn’t be easy either.

      1. Anon I’m not so much worried about points. It’s been great to watch them battle on the track this year. In terms of points, things were pretty much all over after the first few races. I’m enjoying watching the actual competitive racing that is happening.

        As for taking penalties and new PU’s why wouldn’t they as long as each new one is “improved” in terms of performance and potential reliability. That’s how you go about closing the PU gap, something that Renault just didn’t do for years after starting so far behind.

        The other point about taking penalties for any of the top 3 teams – they’re generally back into the top 10 inside the first 10 or so laps and at worst get an easy 5th or 6th such is the gap between the top teams and the rest. They come back with next to no resistance from anyone (one driver in particular) so their “loss” is actually pretty minimal compared to a gain than can net you a couple of wins or high podiums.

    2. Vettel is still pretty good as well, is that sarcasm? The only thing vettel had in 2018 was speed, he lost even that!

  2. Looking forward to more of this battles. Great Britain and Austria already gave us some amazing highlights. Besides, with Charles now feeling comfortable driving a bit dirty, I wonder what he’ll be like going against Max.

    1. They will both end up in the wall.
      And that will be the start of end of their dirty driving, because suddenly everyone will realize that “jeez, dirty driving will end up in the wall sooner or later”.

    2. @ajpennypacker Leclerc only got away with his dirty driving because Hamilton avoided it. Max has neither as much to lose nor is he as calm a character as Hamilton is these days, it will most likely end with 2 broken cars, maybe the teams should stiffen up those suspension arms in preparation!

    3. Charles and Max are from another level, Lewis is just lucky that he is using a better car than both. Next year Lewis may not even get close to them if the car advantage he enjoyed for years has gone.

      1. Keeping telling yourself that as you rock away in the corner watching him make history.

        1. Massa was better than Lewis in 2008. If it wasn’t for crashgate, Massa would have been rightful champion.

          1. @bigjoe nothing you say has any merit whatsoever bigot joe. Back to your cave troll scum before I throw some halal meat at you.

          2. Wow. I recently re-watched 2008, and I don’t know what series you watched– But Massa was nowhere near Hamilton’s level, especially in the rain.

            Consistency was Massa’s problem his entire career. He was lightning quick off the line, and on a good day, untouchable. And then he spun more times than a ballerina on a tilt-a-whirl at the British Grand Prix. And while history records he won the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix, it’s because the stewards handed him the trophy, not because of his driving.

      2. You are right, if Max and Leclerc had better cars they wouldn’t keep hitting the barriers and other drivers. It’s the car what causes it!

      3. +1
        Senna would’ve never let them beat him in slower cars.

        1. @bigjoe Hamilton already won 2 championships in the second best car so unlucky. The fact you think Hamilton should win every race this year is crazy do you expect him to win 20 races a year or something. Lol as if there has not been races this year that other cars were better. All that matters is Hamilton will be champion in the best car, so where do you get this he lets others beat him?. Every single champion has lost races in the best car lol, did Alonso win every race in his championship years. How come Alonso let Hamilton win races in the same cars aswell. The fact Massa should of been champion shows Hamilton won the title in the second best car haha, unless you feel Massa is a better driver than Hamilton haha

      4. You’re funny.

        Deluded, but funny.

  3. This does feel like a good omen for 2020, but how many years have we been saying that and yet Merc still find that extra performance each time.

  4. I wonder how Leclerc’s wins will affect Verstappen, because at one point he had a choice of Ferrari or Mercedes. Is it a coincidence Max ran into cars the two races Charles won.

    1. His choice was and is Red Bull though.

  5. Poor @bigjoe watching Hamilton make history neevr seeing his fav driver win a title since Lewis as been in F1 haha. Youre fav cannot even get a drive with a top team lol… I know it hurts as you honestly wish Alonso was in Lewis place. Alonso should shown he was better when he went against a rookie. Imagine not winning the title in 07

  6. It is now that counts, results from the past don´t. If, then, else, was, used. etc.

Comments are closed.