Mercedes in disbelief about Red Bull’s speed

Red Bull has put down a rocket of a car with the RB19, everyone actually agrees on that. Thirteen races have now been held this year and the car is still undefeated. An important advantage of the RB19 is its speed on the straights. That was already apparent at the beginning of this year, but also in Belgium the power of the car of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez on the straights was again obvious. Auto, Motor and Sports put the numbers together.

In Belgium, Red Bull clocked the highest top speed, at 340.8 km/h with the DRS wing open. An advantage of more than 3 km/h over Ferrari, almost 8 km/h over Mercedes and even 14 km/h over McLaren. George Russell (Mercedes) drove with a different rear wing to Lewis Hamilton and was about 13 km/h slower than Red Bull on the straight. “It’s unbelievable how much lap time Red Bull gains once the rear wing is open,” said Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott. “When we superimpose the speed curves, we can hardly believe it ourselves.”

Red Bull does depend on DRS to take this advantage, because with the valve closed the difference is suddenly minimal. AMuS for Red Bull in Belgium records a top speed of 320.5 km/h without DRS, which Mercedes (319.8 km/h) and Ferrari (318.3 km/h) are close behind. That seems to be a change compared to the beginning of this year, because then the RB19 slid quite easily past the competitors on the straights even without DRS.

Anyway, with DRS, Red Bull at least has a trump card and there is now a vague rumor that the FIA ​​wants to abolish the use of DRS in qualifying to level things out more. That only sounds very unlikely, since the top man of the FIA ​​stated earlier this year that Red Bull’s dominance should not be ‘punished’.