F1 News: Red Bull Blows the Lid Off Mercedes Hybrid Dominance - Superior Engine to Blame
Red Bull has put Mercedes' high performance in F1 over the hybrid era down to their "superior engine performance".
The hybrid era of F1 began in 2014 and since then Mercedes have won eight consecutive constructor's championships, as well as Lewis Hamilton winning six of his seven driver's championships in that time.
Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey has reflected on what went wrong for the team at the start of the hybrid era and what it takes to be in the chance of winning a championship. He explained:
“A decent engine. We started the turbo hybrid era and Renault didn’t get it right. That was pretty depressing.”
Dr Helmut Marko, advisor for Red Bull, has also discussed what helped Mercedes take their eight championship wins. According to SilverArrows.net Marko explained:
“The Mercedes dominance was due to superior engine performance.
“At least for the first four years,” the Austrian concluded.
2022 was the first year since the hybrid era was introduced into the sport that Mercedes have not won the constructor's championship, with Red Bull taking the title for the first time since 2013. Mercedes struggled with many issues on the W13 cars during the season but were able to make some significant improvements towards the end of the year to bring in a race win at the Brazilian Grand Prix from George Russell.
The Mercedes team have said they are confident they will be able to return to the sport for the 2023 season back on form due to those significant developments.
Red Bull suffered from some reliability issues in 2022, but despite this dominated the year with Max Verstappen becoming a two-time champion at the Japanese Grand Prix and him driving the team to victory in the constructor's championship at the Austin Grand Prix.
The 2023 season starts with the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday 5th March.