The single lap when Verstappen revealed some of Red Bull’s true pace in Melbourne

18 comments on “The single lap when Verstappen revealed some of Red Bull’s true pace in Melbourne”

1. 

   bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
   3rd April 2023, 18:10

   To be honest, I haven’t bored of Max dominating yet. If it goes on for year after year then yeah, I’d get tired of it. When it happens that someone is just totally hooked up with the car (Schumacher and others have done it), I think it’s important to admire it first and then worry about whether this is a sport anymore later.

   The others combined have thousands of people, brilliant minds and billions of dollars. For a team and a driver to get as far ahead as Max is now is a phenomenal effort. So i’m just enjoying it for now, even if it is a one man race.
   1. 

      David BR (@david-br)
      3rd April 2023, 20:03

      @bernasaurus It’s not grating yet and TBH Max’s attitude – yeah, well, I’m good and the car’s good – is actually a plus. He doesn’t do false modesty and just says it how it is. It does bother me more that it’s already all over in terms of the WDC (as Perez confirmed this weekend with his performance). But having just accepted that fact, the rest of the competition is intriguing this season: can Aston Martin/Alonso trouble the podium? Can Ferrari finally act a bit more like Ferrari? Will the Mercedes upgrades finally work? Can McLaren recover? Lots of interesting teammate scraps too. It’s fine.
      1. 

         Esploratore (@esploratore1)
         4th April 2023, 0:54

         I’d say as long as there’s some fight for wins it’s a season that can be fun, I didn’t expect mercedes to improve so much already this race, and alonso also got closer than ever in quali. Can probably see it like 2019, where merc dominated but ferrari won 3 races on merit and should’ve been more if not for some mistakes\bad luck and red bull won some too, also on merit.
      2. 

         sam
         4th April 2023, 16:15

         yeah, the tip of the spear is always exciting if there’s a fight on, but that comes around every 5 or so years. in the meantime, there’s so many great story lines up and down the field that keep the show entertaining.
2. 

   RomTrain
   3rd April 2023, 18:24

   The pace after Max regained the lead showed the true pace of the RBR. Partly the lap time was improved also due to DRS, but obviously there is also much more pace hidden in the RBR than revealed to the public.
3. 

   Robert de Jong
   3rd April 2023, 18:35

   I really love these race recaps. This is so valuable in understanding what goes on.
   I’ve been a F1 fan since 98, but it’s due to these graphs and the explanations that my understanding and race enjoyment have grown.
   I normally don’t comment on websites, but I think I have to acknowledge all the work you guys put in.
   So THANK YOU!
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      5th April 2023, 14:26

      You’re welcome – very glad you found it useful.
4. 

   José Lopes da Silva
   3rd April 2023, 20:00

   Verstappen pretty much showed that he deserved this as soon as 2016.~
   And this analysis article is the single interesting point of the race.
5. 

   David BR (@david-br)
   3rd April 2023, 20:05

   My guess is that they’re holding back and the true pace difference is around a second – even more if they really had to push. But how can we know? Virtually impossible.
   1. 

      Mooa42
      3rd April 2023, 23:05

      I think we might have seen it if max had a chance to get fastest lap at the end of the race. After the last race I would have expected Sergio and Max to lay it all on the table on the last lap.
      1. 

         David BR (@david-br)
         4th April 2023, 0:26

         Good point.
   2. 

      sam
      4th April 2023, 16:19

      you can see flashes, even from last year. the performance at Japan was a showcase in Max’s skill, but also the actual ability of that Red Bull, that was after almost an entire season of the rest of the field being able to play catch up. he was 1 lap a second clear of the closest non Red Bull car. and they improved upon that success for this year. they are definitely hiding pace.
6. 

   Alex (@)
   3rd April 2023, 20:59

   We certainly saw race management from Verstappen this weekend – managing his pace to spare his tires and car. The question is whether he went further than that – “the car would be fine at X, but we’ll go 0.5s slower” – for PR purposes.

   Personally I think it’s possible on the margins, but it can’t be by much, because we have seen the car flat out. Vestappen was clearly flat out almost to the end in Saudi Arabia, and the margin there was 1 second, so it looks like that’s the gap.

   For the 1 lap in Australia where he had a bigger advantage – we’d just had a restart, and he was the only car in the field with clear air. Certainly the only car with both clear air and DRS. That combination is easily worth half a second (probably more), which leaves his car advantage under 0.7s (probably less).

   That would be consistent with the gap seeming to be slightly closer in Australia than in Saudi Arabia — and with Perez (in the brief stints he had clear air and was pushing) trading fastest laps with other people rather than having them all to himself.

   So, best guess for me – on our limited data so far – is that the Red Bull’s advantage varies by between 0.5s and 1.0s per lap depending on the track, and that’s ‘real performance’.
7. 

   Mayrton
   4th April 2023, 8:43

   Keeping the narrative alive… while in reality the others are not that far behind and especially Mercedes is not.
   1. 

      sam
      4th April 2023, 16:29

      Mercedes I think after these last 2 races has a very favorable look. but I think to say they’re back is folly, those 2 tracks are very soft on tires, the Mercedes was chewing it’s tires a lot faster than the competition in Bahrain. in Bahrain, Mercedes was the first of the front runners to pit, and again, the second stint they pitted earlier than the others at the front. at the end Lewis was clearly falling back from Fernando in that last stint. so yeah, on circuits where the tire deg doesn’t really come into it so much, the Mercedes can push a lot harder than they will be able to at most tracks.

      I expect once we get to actual race tracks where tire deg plays a role, and not street circuits, Mercedes will be back behind Ferrari and Aston Martin.
      1. 

         Todfod (@todfod)
         5th April 2023, 7:52

         I doubt they’ll be behind Ferrari… as Ferrari are as bad on their tyres as Mercedes is. Plus Mercedes will outdevelop Ferrari from race 1 onwards, so by the time we get to Barcelona, Mercedes would have already found a few tenths on Ferrari.

         Aston will still have an advantage on Mercedes in high deg circuits, so it could be interesting to see their battle in Baku.

         Red bull had this season wrapped in pre season testing. I don’t think there’s a narrative at all for the WDC and WCC winner other than Max and RB.
   2. 

      Steve (@scbriml)
      4th April 2023, 20:22

      What narrative?

      Are Verstappen fans still pushing the laughable narrative that the Red Bull is a slow dog that only Verstappen can get decent performance from. But then, Perez is comfortably P2 in the WDC and Red Bull has nearly double the points of their closest rival. This after just three races – three wins, two 1-2s.

      Man up and admit it, the Red Bull is clearly the fastest car by a huge margin. As fast as anything Hamilton had when he was dominating. The only surprise in this race was that Perez failed to get on the podium.
8. 

   JohnC
   5th April 2023, 0:03

   Hamilton’s lap times.
   Lap 6 1:22.890 – Lewis was trying to catch Russell
   Lap 11 1:23.790
   Lap 12 1:24.616 – Max overtakes Lewis
   Lap 13 1:23.771
   Lap 17 1:22.121

   Lewis is sandbagging.

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