ROUND 23: Abu Dhabi 🇦🇪
FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX 2023
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 2009
- Number of laps: 58
- Circuit Length: 5.281 km
- Race Distance: 306.183 km
- Lap record: 1:26.103 Max Verstappen (2021)
- 2022 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
My thinking is the opposite: with no major rules changes I don’t see a reason why RB should lose any of their advantage. They’ve had the luxury of being able to switch focus to next year since May already and by now we’re past the period where they were hit with the overspend development penalty.
I would love Ferrari or McLaren or Mercedes or Aston to be able to challenge next year, but I’m honestly assuming the next time we can hope to see a fight for the championship is '26.
Keep in mind that Max is so good that for a battle for first place to happen he either needs to have a teammate that is almost equal (not going to happen) or a car that is actually not equal but slightly slower than his challenger.
I can’t imagine that happening without a major rules shakeup (and even then it would require Newey to get things wrong which - let’s be honest - is also unlikely).
It’s not unrealistic to think this dynasty will last until Max decides he’s had enough of F1.
Things won’t change much because these rules are aero-dependent, and Newey has nailed aero development for F1. But it doesn’t mean other teams can make progress in aero development. They know it’s just trying things until they find something that works. Most teams have the engine part controlled by now.
The new rules for 2026 will make aero less important, and may give a better opportunity to other teams. But I’m praying that we don’t get something similar to the Mercedes dominance when hybrids arrived.
That being said, I still expect Max to be there fighting for a championship, even if the Red Bull is negatively impacted by the new rules.
Well between the penalty and the fact that they naturally get less time because of their championship position, teams like McLaren would have had almost 50% more testing time. This and the fact that updates on this year’s car carry over to the next in my opinion nullify the advantage RB got from stopping upgrades early. What is an issue for other teams is that with the design team that RB has, I back them to make better improvements than the others even if the testing time allocated for next year by all the teams is the same
It’s the Mercedes era all over again. The dominant design formula is determined and everybody is a year behind the team the came up with the formula.
It’ll become closer and closer so Red Bull need a strong second driver so they can’t lose on strategy.