F1 aero chief declares key area Red Bull are NOT quickest

adrian newey at Red Bull — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Insights

F1 aero chief declares key area Red Bull are NOT quickest

This F1 team has highlighted its straight line speed advantage after the Saudi Arabia GP.

Sheona Mountford

Friday 15 March 2024 18:28

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One F1 team has highlighted its straight line speed advantage at the Saudi Arabia GP last weekend - and it's not Red Bull.

Max Verstappen led most of the laps at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, finishing 13 seconds ahead of teammate Sergio Perez to achieve his 56th career win.

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The two Red Bull drivers were followed by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri in the McLaren.

George Russell managed to finish 6th in the Mercedes, with the team currently sitting in 4th in the constructors, clear there is still work to be done.

Perez, Verstappen and Leclerc on the Saudi Arabia GP podium 2024

Shovlin acknowledges Mercedes straight line speed advantage

Despite not being as quick as their rivals, Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin identified the strengths of the car.

“We were actually one of the fastest cars, if not the fastest car, in a straight line,” Shovlin said in a Mercedes post-race debrief video.

“So we’re on quite a light wing level and what we could do is slow ourselves down in sector two and three to try and recover a bit of that time in sector one.

“But ideally we’d like to keep that and work out a way to try and improve sector one by means other than just putting a load more downforce on the car and then paying the price for it on the straight.”

Shovlin also analysed where Mercedes could improve their performance for the next race.

He added: “The big one is we don’t really have enough grip there [Saudi]. So that’s one of the things that we are working hard on this week because Melbourne has a similar nature of corners. We’re doing a lot of work to try and understand why we did not seem to have the grip of some of our close competitors.”

Red Bull Max Verstappen Ferrari Mercedes McLaren Sergio Perez