Max Verstappen is still waiting for his first look at the car he will drive as he seeks a third consecutive world championship this year.
His Red Bull team principal Christian Horner indicated the team’s real RB19 will appear during pre-season testing in three weeks’ time.Red Bull presented its new livery for the 2023 F1 season on a machine it referred to as an ‘RB19’, though the team previously indicated it would not present its latest design at its launch event. The car revealed bore a strong similarity to last year’s design and appeared to lack some details required by the latest technical rules, including larger wing mirrors.
Speaking after the event Verstappen admitted he has not laid eyes on the team’s latest creation yet.
“I haven’t seen any pictures or renderings because I’m not interested in these kind of things. I only want the fast car and it doesn’t matter how it looks like to me.”
Last year Red Bull presented a show car at its launch event, which it referred to as the RB18. The team’s actual car did not appear until pre-season testing several weeks later.
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Testing for the new season will begin at the Bahrain International Circuit on February 23rd. Team principal Christian Horner admitted the car they will run at that test will not look the same as the one presented today.
“The car that was shown today obviously will be somewhat different when you see it in Bahrain,” he said. “Today was really about launching the team’s aspirations for the year ahead, the partners that we have and of course the exciting announcement with the Ford partnership. And to do it here in the US, in this market, is the first time obviously ever for Red Bull Racing.
“So what you’ve seen today obviously isn’t a total reflection of what will hit the track in Bahrain in a couple of weeks’ time.”
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amian
3rd February 2023, 19:31
This “article” is as redundant as RedBull’s livery presentation.
JackL
3rd February 2023, 22:07
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo you wasted our time?
I hate this era of livery launches. Show us the actual car or dont waste our time.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
4th February 2023, 2:04
Why? There’s absolutely no benefit to reveal absolutely anything about the cars design.
Red Bull used to be one of the last as they’re always pushing their cars to the absolute limit of development time, then they realised what’s the point? It’s just a sponsors / showcase event anyway, why not put it out first and get that peak exposure from being “the first” of the new season.
If you don’t want your time wasted, there are plenty of other things to do in the world until testing begins.
Serg (@serg33)
4th February 2023, 3:56
I remember early 2000’s when F1 wings used to be covered pre-race. The wings architecture then was simpler than it is today, so these was risk of mimicking the set-up by rivals. Today, all parts of the car are fully exposed because the set-up complexity is impossible to recreate.
So drawing a parallel to car launches. If a true Red Bull is launched, say, one week before the test, how much of an innovation could rivals copy, especially in a cost-constrained environment?
Tristan (@skipgamer)
4th February 2023, 4:22
From what they’ve said publicly it’s not so much about what people can copy, but rather they like to have as much time before testing to finish development and getting the car put together just in time before testing, and trying to squeeze in a launch event distracts from that… How much of that is truth though, who knows
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
4th February 2023, 12:27
I think these livery launches are a complete waste of time and effort involved. It used to be exciting when you got some idea of what the actual cars would look like but does anyone really get that excited by just a new livery. It’s just a marketing exercise. Most of them are really only tweaked from the previous year anyway.
If it’s too early in the design process to reveal something like the actual cars, why not have the car reveals much closer to the testing? Like in the week/10 days before. I accept the actual car might not be identical but it would be more interesting and exciting as a fan.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
5th February 2023, 5:33
I’d think a compere would know Daniel’s last name
It was funny except it wasn’t.