Ferrari seeking answers to Red Bull’s ‘mega big’ DRS advantage

Red Bull’s RB19 has been the class of the field so far in 2023, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez taking comfortable victories across the opening three rounds of the season. 

This year’s Red Bull has boasted incredible straightline speed, particularly when their DRS is active, which was highlighted when Verstappen breezed past Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes as he carved through the field in Saudi Arabia. 

Verstappen was clocked with a speed difference of over 20km/h when he easily passed Hamilton for the lead in Australia, while Red Bull teammate Perez recorded the highest top speed in the race at 341km/h. 

The design of Red Bull’s rear wing and their significant advantage has raised eyebrows among rivals in the paddock, with Hamilton describing the RB19’s speed on the straights as “insane”. 

“Red Bull has a mega big DRS effect, bigger than everybody else,” Vasseur noted. “And we have to understand how they are able to do something like this.

"They are doing something different, and they are doing something better for sure.”

One of Ferrari’s key targets over the winter was to make their 2023 car faster on the straights and Vasseur admitted the team expected to “compensate a bit more” with their straightline speed deficit to Red Bull this year. 

"I think that the difference was probably bigger last year," he said.

“We were expecting to compensate a bit more, but the gap was bigger last year,” he insisted.

“Now for sure we have room for improvement in this area. They are doing something different and they are doing something better for sure. But we are on it.”