Fernando Alonso’s third place in his debut with Aston Martin made it clear that there are reasons to dream of the Spaniard again, but also that the distance from Red Bull is considerable. That RB19 advantage, however, could dissolve over the course of year, and that’s where the great opportunity of the British team to approach the main favorites this year.
This has been confirmed by Helmut Marko, former driver and adviser to the Austrian team, who acknowledges that the penalty he has reduced team time available in the wind tunnel by 10%essential to try new things and introduce improvements during the season, will weigh them down as the races go by, collect I’mMotor.
“As the season progresses and we run out of time in the wind tunnel, the others will still have it available and our advantage will fade“, he believes, which is why he considers it very important to win as many points as possible until then.
At the moment, Red Bull has not noticed this limitation because “we prepared ourselves in an optimal way”, aware that after the sanction they had to “use the wind tunnel efficiently”and have managed to build a very competitive car to fight to revalidate the championship.
It will not be as easy as they have pointed out from Mercedes after the overwhelming victory of Max Verstappen and the second place of Checo Pérez in Bahrain. “We had a good performance, but enough to win all the races and have the title in hand…“, doubted Marko, who considers that it would be “fantastic” if that were the case, but remember that Sakhir has a very specific circuit.
How old is Red Bull?
the austrian team only has 63% time, product of the sanction and his position in the last World Cup, lower for the top of the table, and higher as he descends in the classification. For this reason, Aston Martin, which finished seventh, has a 100% available.
This gives you a 37% advantage with respect to the current champions, 25% with respect to Ferrari and 20% in relation to Mercedes. Alpine, which a priori was going to be his main rival for fourth place, is 15% behind.
At the moment, the Silverstone team is already working on its first big package of improvements, although it will not arrive until Emilia-Romagna, the fifth Grand Prix of the season. Before, in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Azerbaijan and Miami, where they will incorporate small advances.
