In the 58 laps of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, Kevin Magnussen moments before he hit the wall and tore off his tire on lap 54. The shredded rubber would soon be followed by a second red flag, throwing the race into chaos. Anyway, at this point Max Verstappen has a lead of almost 8.5 seconds over Lewis Hamilton. This advantage puts Red Bull more than one lap ahead of any rival Formula 1 team so far this season at its home race.

Defending two-time champion Verstappen overcame teammate Sergio Perez in the Bahrain opener, while Fernando Alonso was the highest-ranked non-RB19 driver. He crossed the finish line 38.637 seconds behind the winner. Perez reversed Red Bull’s role to win in Saudi Arabia, while Alonso was once again the best of the rest. The Spaniard was listed as adrift of 20.728 seconds following Aston Martin’s successful appeal.

Add those two advantages under Verstappen’s control and Red Bull could boast a cumulative cushion of 1m07.718s to underline its perfect winning record at the start of the term. That’s almost three seconds more than Verstappen’s pole time of 1m04.984s at last year’s Austrian Grand Prix.

Of course, the race in Melbourne actually ended with a parade behind the safety car, returning Verstappen’s gap to just 0.179 seconds. However, Red Bull’s flying start is obvious to all. If Australia avoided any red flags and a full restart, if Perez didn’t roll out his launch in the Saudis, or if the pair of RB19s didn’t control their pace when they were far ahead, the gap would have been wider.

F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali has insisted that new fans will not be disturbed by the monopoly and other teams will catch up. That seems almost inevitable, unless Red Bull is actually going to beat McLaren’s 1988 effort of 15 out of 16 to win every grand prix on the calendar. But a closer look at the strength of the defending constructors’ champions suggests defeat may not be coming anytime soon.

Aston is the surprise package for 2023, rising from seventh in the standings last season to now a representative second. But Alonso believes that if he is to beat RB19, he will need help from a Red Bull penalty, a pit stop error, a crash or a bit unreliable. On merit alone, the sluggish AMR23 isn’t fast enough, he said.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull RB19, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23

Photography: Glenn Dunbar/ motorsport pictures

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has pledged to change the car concept, although George Russell has the pace to overtake Verstappen at the start of the Australian Grand Prix, while Hamilton has highlighted how much more competitive the three-point star is. . They won’t debut on the car until at least the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, although Mercedes says it was aware of the need for a new direction even before testing and that the updated components have been proven in the wind tunnel , even so, bystanders shouldn’t expect a “miracle” turnaround.

Then there’s Ferrari, its closest rival to Red Bull in the first season of the new ground effect rules. New team principal Fred Vasseur initially disagreed with his driver, saying more immediate setup tweaks rather than car upgrades were needed to be competitive. Since then, the party line has changed. While a full “B-spec” machine has been ruled out, Vasseur now says a series of developments will take place each weekend in Miami, Imola and Barcelona to stem bad form.

But he also identified the first three races, and the next one in Baku, Azerbaijan, as all of them being outliers that would never fit the Ferrari SF-23. The pitch in Bahrain is too rough, Saudi Arabia is too dominated by straight-line speed, Australia is too interrupted by diversions. “We need to understand these three events, it’s not a full panel of orbits,” he said. The problem with this excuse is that, for Red Bull’s rivals, the RB19 hasn’t been hurt by any of these changing circumstances.

Verstappen’s 0.3-second advantage over Charles Leclerc secured pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, thanks to the RB19’s quick low-end acceleration and excellent speed through the medium-speed corners. So much so that it doesn’t matter that Verstappen is 2.5mph slower in a straight line compared to the Ferrari, which is consistently stronger above 150mph. This suggests an emphasis on downforce.

First, it marks a big departure from Red Bull’s performance last season, when the rebadged Honda engine couldn’t immediately overcome the heavy chassis and was often accelerated by the light Ferrari, which ended up being limited to top speed.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photography: Andy Horn / motorsport pictures

The second thing to note is how differently the RB19 performed in Saudi. There, with Red Bull’s powerful use of DRS, Perez lit up the speed trap. With Verstappen out of contention due to his Q2 gearbox failure, the Mexican set a lap pace of 0.155 seconds before Leclerc’s power unit grid penalty was applied. Perez trailed the Ferrari through a high-speed change of direction, eventually rejoining the front with a top speed advantage of up to 5 mph to establish his lap command.

With the Q3 showdown between Verstappen and Russell, with the former taking pole by 0.236 seconds, the wind was in Australia. That advantage builds on superior straight-line performance while maintaining higher speeds through more open corner sequences, only to lose out to the Mercedes at the slower apex.

In the race, Verstappen enjoyed a 0.162-second advantage per lap in 34 consecutive laps between laps 20 and 53 once a cylinder failure caused Russell to leave Hamilton behind. In the name of tires and reliability.

GPS data revealed the strength of RB19, as well as its variable behavior. It responds to setting changes, snaps through corners on a field, and then sets the standard in a straight line. It seems to enjoy a wide operating window – for example, unlike the 2022 Mercedes W13, for example, it will suffer from various early problems whenever uneven track surfaces disrupt its knife-edge handling habits.

Plus: How Red Bull built the most complete F1 car yet

Unlike last season, when Ferrari could exit corners significantly faster, a glaring Red Bull weakness has so far not been exposed. Alonso set the standard with his ultra-late braking points and ability to gain momentum early, which could suit Monaco. But telemetry shows that the RB19 doesn’t completely fall apart in the same parts, if not an exact match. Otherwise, it has proven itself capable of adapting to every other part of the track.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photography: Glenn Dunbar/ motorsport pictures

While Vasseur doesn’t think there’s a track that’s really suited for the SF-23, there doesn’t seem to be a track where Red Bull will stumble. That’s why the “supertime” metric, which focuses on each team’s fastest lap over the entire Grand Prix weekend, currently records a 0.401% gap between Ferrari and Red Bull. In a standard 90-second lap, this equates to 0.36 seconds, with Red Bull likely to lead second. Applying this to an average 55-lap race (unaffected by safety cars, red flags and start restarts), Verstappen and Perez would soon enjoy another 20-second lead.

That would put the Red Bull accumulator at just over 1 minute 27 seconds, not far from a full lap of the Jeddah Corniche.