George Russell has said the nature of Formula 1‘s regulations means an early switch to their 2024 car will not give Red Bull an outright advantage ahead of the British Grand Prix.
The current double-world champions are running away with F1‘s trophies in the bag again, after winning every single race so far in the 2023 season.
The Austrian team enjoys a 99 points gap to Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship and Max Verstappen sitting 98 points clear of Fernando Alonso in the closest non-Red Bull.
The advantage has led to discussion that the team will stop developing the RB19 to focus on its successor, which will be limited in development due to both the structure of the regulations and the penalty Red Bull will take for breaching cost-cap regulations in the 2021 season.
Russell believes this will not necessarily give the team an advantage as Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari are distracted from 2024 by duelling with each other for ‘best of the rest’ in the current campaign.
“I think with the stable regulations between this year, and next year, the cars kind of roll into the next season anyway.” Russell said to the media, including Total-Motorsport.com.
“So obviously in the season of 2021, when you’ve got this new big rule change there are concerns in regards to that.
“But this year, we will finish the season with a car that will just be an evolution into the following year.”
Hamilton calls for changes
The opinion of the Brit is in contrast of his Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, who suggested that the regulations could be adjusted to limit when teams are allowed to switch focus to their next year’s cars so that everyone changes at the same time.
But Red Bull is not in favour of this, with Max Verstappen pointing out that Hamilton never requested such a rule prior to 2021 – although there were no restrictions on budget and development before then.
Whilst some team principals want the cost-cap to be lightened in regards to developing facilities, with James Vowles pointing out that Williams are a long way behind rivals on infrastructure but are restricted by the financial regulations in regards to upgrading their equipment.
