Red Bull proud to produce “our best car” despite tight 2021 title fight – Newey

In brief

RB18 ‘statistically our best car’ – Newey

“Statistically, obviously, RB18 has been our best car,” he said in a video produced by the team. “It’s a car I think we can be very proud of in as much as we had a tight championship battle through ’21, obviously, so we kept developing the car well into the season.

“Of course, when you have limited resources, then if you’re putting research and development into that car, then that research and development you’re not putting into this brand new, very new car for the new regulations, which we knew were coming, obviously.”

Red Bull was later found to have exceeded the budget cap during the 2021 season, but the team has denied gaining any benefit by doing so.

Newey said they faced a “difficult balancing act” in prioritising the development of their current and new cars during 2021. “We focused on trying to get the fundamentals right, trying to get the package in the way that would including front and rear suspension, the layouts of the monocoque, the layouts of the radiators and so forth. So that we would have a package that hopefully, even if it didn’t start out as the quickest car, we could develop through the season.”

The team quickly got to grips with its initial problems with the car, he said. “In the pre-season testing, we were a little bit worried before we got there. We had already done a little bit of research and knew roughly what we need to do to improve it.

“So when we put the race one package on in Bahrain just before the race, then that catapulted us from definitely behind Ferrari to broadly level, let’s say. The car definitely had some weaknesses in the first half of the season, we still have some weaknesses of course, but we reduced those weaknesses, and certainly by the second half we had a fully competitive package.”

Horner ‘turned down Ferrari role’

The long-time team principal of Red Bull guided his team to both world championship titles in Formula 1 this year, bringing his total trophy haul with the team to 11 titles and 92 race wins.

Horner turned down Ferrari’s interest and the Scuderia instead opted for Frederic Vasseur, who will leave the equivalent position at Alfa Romeo to join Ferrari.

Before Vasseur was announced as Binotto’s replacement, Horner played down suggestions Ferrari had made an approach to him. “My commitment is very much with the Red Bull team,” he said. “I’ve been there since the beginning and we obviously have a very close attachment.”

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Maserati continue to lead Formula E testing

Maximilian Guenther was fastest for the team by 0.359 seconds in the morning, heading DS Penske’s reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne and Jaguar’s Mitch Evans.

It was the same top two in the afternoon, with a gap of 0.263s between Guenther and Vandoorne, with Nissan’s Norman Nato in third place.

Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi had a tricky day, only completing five laps in the morning and not setting a recorded lap time in the afternoon. NIO 333’s Dan Ticktum also failed to set a lap in the afternoon.

During the second session, a 24-lap race simulation took place.

FIA court rejects ACI’s appeal over Beganovic

The Automobile Club d’Italia has lost an appeal before the FIA’s International Court of Appeal (ICA) centred around the disqualification of Ferrari Driver Academy member Dino Beganovic from a race in June. The Prema racer went on to win the Formula Regional European championship despite being thrown out of the second race at Paul Ricard in June after his car failed post-race technical checks.

The disqualification was later overturned when Prema successfully appealed the penalty in the national court of appeal on September 9th, with the decision shared on September 30th. ACI, which organises FREC, notified the ICA 10 days later that it wanted to appeal that decision and so Beganovic was provisionally disqualified again until the court hearing.

But ACI was deemed to have not filed its intention to appeal in time, so the case was rejected by the ICA on procedural grounds. It ordered that ACI pay Prema’s legal fees and ruled that “the competent Sporting Authority to draw, as appropriate, the consequences of this ruling.

Beganovic is now set to regain the 18 points lost to the Paul Ricard penalty. His disqualification had no impact on the title fight as he he had already beaten Gabriele Mini to the crown by 40 points.

Links

Motor racing links of interest:

Power confirms broken ribs ‘healed up’ after kart crash (Speedcafe)

'Will Power has confirmed that his broken ribs have healed up after a wild kart crash which he recently revealed.'

Another new engineer for Newgarden next season (Racer)

'Josef Newgarden will pursue his third IndyCar title with a third different race engineer in three seasons. With the departure of Gavin Ward to McLaren SP late in 2021, Penske hired Eric Leichtle. Despite his lack of IndyCar race engineering experience, he and Newgarden combined to win five races.'

IndyCar to significantly increase marketing budget (Blackbook Motorsport)

'IndyCar executives have confirmed that the series is planning to significantly increase its marketing budget for next year in response to rising levels of competition.'

Formula E announce Hankook Tire as technical partner for five E-Prix races (iSportconnect)

'Formula E today announced technical partner Hankook Tire as title sponsor of five E-Prix races in Mexico City, Rome and London in season nine of the world championship. The 2023 Hankook Mexico City E-Prix on 14 January is the first race of the season and the competitive debut of the new Gen3 car.'

Cram Motorsport and Sainteloc Racing reveal F4 UAE line-ups (Formula Scout)

'Cram Motorsport and Sainteloc Racing have announced their first driver signings for the 2023 Formula 4 United Arab Emirates season. Italian team Cram will run Sebastian Murray and Flavio Olivieri for the five-round campaign that begins next month.'

Australian squad Evans GP announces two-car GB4 entry (GB4)

'Australian team Evans GP has announced plans to enter the 2023 GB4 championship with a two-car entry. The squad has competed in the Formula Regional Asia Championship since 2021.'

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Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

We went wheel-to-wheel for the first time with the Gen3 cars in today's simulated race, and learned plenty for for the season ahead. The cars take a break tomorrow, but fear not, there's still plenty more to come! Keep your eyes peeled. 👀 pic.twitter.com/o7as5c89eJ

— Maserati MSG Racing (@Maserati_FE) December 14, 2022

Looking good out there, @oliverrowland1! 😎☀️ pic.twitter.com/rkfxl5vp7W

— Mahindra Racing (@MahindraRacing) December 14, 2022

Dingle Dell Merrily on High 🎄

Brands Hatch in the snow, as you've never seen it before 👀

Icy vistas of our beloved race track from above ❄️ pic.twitter.com/xjCzhei1W0

— Brands Hatch (@Brands_Hatch) December 14, 2022

NICOLAS LONGUET'S A WINNER AGAIN!@NicolasLonguet keeps a cool head in a chaotic race at Suzuka to take his first win of the season 😍#F1Esports #F1 @SauberEsports pic.twitter.com/GQe5QAv0hb

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 14, 2022

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• Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory

Comment of the day

Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey seems unfazed by the prospect of having the time to test his designs in the team’s wind tunnel and in Computational Fluid Dynamic programmes reduced next year off the back of both their title-winning 2022 campaign and also a penalty for exceeding F1’s 2021 budget cap.

Red Bull has a 30% reduction from F1’s baseline for wind tunnel and CFD hours in 2023 down to its table-topping position in the constructors’ championship. There’s then a further 7% decrease (in addition to a $7 million fine) as part of its penalty. Is there a reason why Newey is not concerned about such restrictive room for car development compared to opponents?

The ’23 car is 90% carried over with minimal changes outside of the floor height regs. As a result, the car was likely already pretty much done before the ruling came out. The only way this will matter is if the FIA introduce much more sweeping ‘third year’ reg changes and Red Bull cannot afford to do the development work alongside keeping the ’23 challenger competitive.

Adrian Newey understands aerodynamics and ground effect better than anyone else on the grid, but he still can’t design a competitive car if you only give him two blunt pencils and a dirty rubber…
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Happy birthday!

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On this day in motorsport

• 16 years ago today Fernando Alonso did his first test for McLaren, wearing plain, unbranded overalls following his departure from Renault, much as he did when testing for Aston Martin last month after leaving the Enstone team for the third time in his career