There are always a multitude of reasons to explain why the fastest car in Formula 1 – which this year is very clearly the Red Bull RB19 – is so good.
But one area of Red Bull’s dominance in 2023 has been particularly striking and easy to see even to an untrained eye.
That would be the straightline speed – and it’s prompted Mercedes driver George Russell to make an extreme claim about the RB19 relative to the Mercedes W14. That extreme claim, he emphasised, was not a joke.
But is his assertion merited? And what can Mercedes actually do to close the gap?
