“We have to develop within the restrictions”

Red Bull’s Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey, believes that their car development will be influenced by the budget caps. The legendary aerodynamic engineer believes they cannot bring updates to their car as frequently as they did in previous years.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Newey stressed the impact of cost caps on the development of cars, saying:

“Development for sure is important but the other important factor this year is the cost cap. It means we have to develop within the restrictions, so perhaps we’re making choices where things we might have introduced before, we wait for a bit longer and try to build up a bit of a package before we introduce it, because we can’ t afford to do what we used to do last year or years gone by where there would be something every race.”

According to the Red Bull aerodynamic wizard, cost caps will not only influence the frequency of bringing updates to their car but also the entire development process. Essentially, teams are unable to bring major updates to every race and have to strategize their upgrades and cautiously introduce them onto their cars. Ferrari has also mentioned adopting a similar approach, bringing only the required updates to the circuits.

Red Bull’s Adrian Newey believes track sequencing to play a key role this season in terms of performance

Suggesting how different tracks could suit different teams, Adrian Newey believes track sequencing will be similar to the 2021 season and influence a lot of the performance in 2022. Although the team had a great result at Imola, the Red Bull design genius believes the race weekend in Melbourne went completely against them.

Explaining the importance of track suitability and the unpredictability of the season, Newey said:

“Yes probably today, but clearly in Melbourne we didn’t. I think it’s going to be like last year between Mercedes and ourselves. Some of the circuits will favor one car and others will favor another. It’s so difficult to forecast.”

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The momentum in the 2022 championship could shift similar to the 2021 season from track to track. The Milton Keynes-based team’s Imola weekend result earned them a massive points haul, with Max Verstappen alone scoring 38 points out of the 44 collected. They are now second in the drivers’ standings and constructors’ standings, trailing Ferrari by a narrow margin.

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