Newey: Red Bull thought 2023 would be a 'really tough' year

Adrian Newey thought the 2023 Formula 1 season would be "reallytough" for Red Bull, despite going on to dominate the year. TheRB19 took 21 victories out of 21 races, with 19 of them coming fromeventual World Champion Max Verstappen at the wheel. Verstappenalso broke a number of records on the way to his third title , withthe RB19 becoming the most successful F1 car of all time. Towardsthe end of the 2022 season Red Bull anticipated that Ferrari wouldbe stronger and Mercedes would catch up, but neither managed tomount a credible challenge owing to their car design problems."Going into the season we thought this year was going to be reallytough. The way it panned out, no one ever expected it," Newey toldthe Formula For Success podcast. "But the funny thing is, whenyou're in it, you're just in it. You're looking forward, you're notreally reflecting." Singapore exposed weakness Although the RB19could impress on race day, there was still a lot of challenges theteam had to overcome during a race weekend. Newey believes there isstill a lot to improve with their current package, after the racein Singapore exposed a lot of weaknesses in the RB19. "I've neverbeen satisfied. We've had this fantastic season, broken barriers,records, or whatever. The reality is, there's things with the carthat we feel can be improved," said Newey. "So actually you're notreally thinking about that [success], it's focusing on things like'What are the weaknesses? How can we improve that?' "It's whySingapore was the race that we didn't win. It's quite useful forus, because we made a complete and utter arse of that if I'mhonest, it exposed some weaknesses in the car. "So that's whatyou've really think about is 'How can I improve that? How can Ieradicate that for next year? And just move forward."