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The emergence of Red Bull Racing is one of the most inspirational stories in Formula 1 history. Starting an F1 team from the ashes of Jaguar's failure to win multiple championships, Red Bull Racing has come a long way in the past couple of decades in F1.
Since onboarding Honda as their engine manufacturer, the Milton Keynes-based outfit has challenged Mercedes consistently. Their 2021 campaign was their most successful and dominating season in the V6 Turbo Hybrid era.
In the 2021 season, Red Bull finished with 11 victories and a drivers' championship for Max Verstappen. They lost the constructors' title in a titanically fought close fight with Mercedes. Their dominance and their progress in recent years, however, have reminded everyone of the team's glory days of 2010 to 2013.
The team is responsible for developing two of the greatest drivers of this generation in F1 — Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. Although the outfit is infamous for not showing adequate faith in their drivers' lineup, Verstappen's partnership with Sergio Perez has given it the desired stability it has been searching for since the departure of Daniel Ricciardo.
New regulations bring new challenges for Red Bull Racing
The 2021 season, with one of the most historic title fights, kept the team on its toes right until the final lap of the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
The constant need to stay ahead of Mercedes in the title fight might have pushed Red Bull into bringing in more resources and upgrades, as the title swung between the two teams numerous times last year. Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache, however, argued late last year that the compromise of the 2022 design for the 2021 development was not significant.
The Austrian team has been one of the front runners for over a decade now. This boils down not only to their resources and funding but also to their exceptional facilities, the right personnel, and very focused working practices. It is safe to assume that they would have focused on the developments of the 2022 car just as much as they might have focused on the 2021 title fight, as expressed by team principal Christian Horner in Abu Dhabi.
Horner said:
“We’ve all known that big regulation changes are coming for 2022, and we’ve applied our resources accordingly. It’s put pressure on the organization, of course, but that’s where the team has been outstanding. Keeping a development rate on a new set of regulations and focusing on this year’s car has taken a monumental effort.”
There is, however, one more challenge for the Austrian outfit: the exit of Honda from F1. Although Honda will provide necessary technical support for both Red Bull and Alpha Tauri — Honda's customers since 2019 — the team will have to develop essential technological infrastructure during this transition period.
In a substantial step taken by the sport to become environmentally friendly, engines in 2022 will use E10 fuel, a mix of fossil fuel and ethanol in a 90:10 ratio.
Honda's Yasuaki Asagi, a key personnel in helping the transition with Red Bull, has raised questions about power output with new fuel. In an interview with Motorsport, the Japanese exec said:
“It seems other companies say it’s about the same but, on the contrary, making such an announcement means it’s difficult to get the same power as last year.”
Red Bull Racing would be keen to carry title momentum into 2022 season
Many believe that Red Bull spent more time and resources developing the car for the 2013 season, rather than shifting their focus to regulation changes scheduled for the following season. Due to this, the 2014 season witnessed a dramatic fall in the team's fortunes coupled with the unreliability of the Renault power unit.
For the 2022 season, they have already sorted out the power unit and engine issues. Their close ties with Honda until 2025 will give them enough time to plan a smooth transition without significant losses in overall technical knowledge.
In giving Verstappen the car to challenge Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull introduced upgrades to their 2021 season as late as Sochi, held in late September. Mercedes, however, froze their 2021 developments in July, with the last significant upgrade introduced at the British Grand Prix. This gave the Brackley-based outfit a two-month head start to focus on the new and modified 2022 regulations.
Denying any significant disadvantage against their rivals, Wache said:
“It’s not just development time you are trading off; it’s also manufacturing because you want a lot of spares and parts for the new car. At some point, you have to stop. But we have an outstanding manufacturing facility, which gives us a lot of freedom in terms of longer development. I think our release dates for parts can be later than some others.”
Red Bull Racing has emerged as one of the most dominating racing outfits in the past two decades. Although they were extremely successful during one significant rule change in 2009, they needed six more years in the V6 Turbo-Hybrid era to challenge Mercedes and win one title in the last year of the 2014 regulations. They will be keen to continue this title-winning momentum in the upcoming 2022 season, where they will be hoping for Verstappen to walk Vettel's historic path from earlier years.
