Red Bull admit: Cost cap penalty won’t “make much difference”

As 2022 constructors champions, Red Bull are allocated the lowest aerodynamic development for 2023 but that amount is reduced further due to their punishment for exceeding the F1 budget in 2021.

Red Bull will have just 63% of the windtunnel and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) testing allowance, as a result.

But chief technical officer Newey said: “The reduction of wind tunnel testing means we can therefore evaluate less different components, less different ideas.

“If we’re really smart and always put on the right things, on the model, then of course it doesn’t make much difference.”

Under Newey and team principal Christian Horner’s leadership, Red Bull won four consecutive constructors’ championships before Mercedes roared ahead by winning eight in a row.

This year Red Bull won the constructors’ and drivers’ championships, with Max Verstappen dominating.

“Ferrari won’t be resting,” Newey said about next year’s threats. “They will be kind of sorting out where their weak areas. 

“They had a couple of reliability problems, they obviously made a couple of pit wall mistakes. So they’ll be right back.

“Of course, you obviously saw Mercedes starting with a car that was quite a long way off the pace and evolving it to the point they won the last race but one. So we know they will be right there. So it’s going to be a tough year for sure.”

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton didn’t win a single race for the first time in his career, while teammate George Russell ended a bad year for the team on a high by winning his debut grand prix in Brazil.

Charles Leclerc could benefit in 2023 from new Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, a man he knows well. Vasseur gave Leclerc his F1 debut in 2018.