If It Ain’t Broke: Oracle Red Bull Racing Reveal their 2023 Challenger
via Red Bull
NEW YORK CITY, New York (PSF) — The defending Formula 1 Constructors’ champions are now the second team to reveal their challenger for the 2023 Formula 1 season. This new car will be maneuvered by Sergio “Checo” Perez who is now entering his third season with the team, and will serve as teammate to the defender two-time World Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen.
Red Bull pulled out more of a spectacle for their car reveal than Haas did with their simple Twitter reveal. The champs held an event in New York City which was hosted by Marty Smith who is best known for his passionate personality through his work with college football and NASCAR on ESPN. This host selection was due to the recent announcement of Ford’s partnership with Red Bull which will see the American brand work with Red Bull to produce a new powertrain for 2026 for at least five seasons.
The event itself was agonizing for F1 fans expecting to see the new challenger expeditiously. Instead, Red Bull unleashed a multitude of little segments of things that the majority of fans did not care about along with interviews with people that the majority of fans did not care about. It took around an hour past the start of the car launch event for us fans to actually see the car.
When the car was inevitably revealed, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t looking at the previous season’s RB 18. As you can tell, not much has changed for the defending champs, as the RB 19 is almost identical to last season’s championship winning car. At first glance, the only change to the livery (aside from the few new sponsors) is the change in font of the Honda logo below the number decal at the rear of the car. Okay, the car is the same. There is no real cosmetic changes. Nobody was expecting a full on livery overhaul for Red Bull since they typically keep it similar, but for all the fanfare and the long wait, they could have at least changed up the shades of the colors which they have done in the past few seasons.
On top of the disappointing reveal from a cosmetic standpoint, the car they revealed isn’t even the car they will be driving in Round 1 in Bahrain. Red Bull is keep their cards close to their chest before testing so there is not much of a point to go into the mechanical changes to the car or any innovations of that sort.
Even though, like many fans, I was extremely unenthused by the whole reveal as a whole, I would be lying to you if I said that the car still doesn’t look fast. Since the RB 19 looks just like the RB 18, it is hard not to look at the new challenger and not think about the 17 wins, 28 podiums, 8 pole positions, and 759 points this car amassed last season that led to a Constructors’ Championship along with a Drivers’ Championship. So even though the car may not be as exciting as people would have wanted it to be, it still should strike fear into the nine other teams on the grid who will look to knock the crown off the head of the defending champs. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right?
