Why the summer break has ‘come at a bad time’ for Red Bull

Formula 1 journalist and press conference host Tom Clarkson feels the summer break “has come at a bad time” for Red Bull, given the dominant first half of the season they enjoyed.

Red Bull have won all 12 races of the 2023 season so far between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, and Verstappen has opened up a 125-point lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship after taking eight race wins in a row, and in fact has enough points to lead the Constructors’ Championship in his own right.

While the summer break included a mandatory two-week shutdown period for the teams, work will still be ongoing elsewhere to try and reel in the dominant force of the year so far.

Red Bull momentum could mean summer break has come at ‘bad time’

Speaking to F1 Nation podcast co-host and Sky F1 presenter Natalie Pinkham, Clarkson wondered if the sheer dominance Red Bull exhibited all year long – particularly in the congested run of races before the summer break – would mean that they wouldn’t want the current hiatus.

Clarkson asked: “Do you guys believe in momentum? Because I feel the summer break has come at a bad time for Red Bull.

“I think when you’re on that roll, you just don’t want to stop, do you?”

“I 100% believe in momentum,” Pinkham responded. “I know that Max Verstappen doesn’t, he makes a point of saying that’s a theory he doesn’t concur with.

“But if you look at Sergio Perez, I think a bad run of form can really bog you down and it’s difficult to break out of that. It becomes a mindset.

“The same can be said for a decent finding [of] the groove. George Russell said at the weekend, ‘Qe just need to find our groove.’ And for me, that is momentum.”

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner acknowledged that any upgrades brought to the RB19 for the rest of the season now will be either minor or circuit-specific, leaving the chasing pack with an opportunity to close up if they choose to keep developing their cars.

Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari confirmed that more new parts will be coming to their cars after the summer break, and when asked who could take the fight to Red Bull once racing gets underway again, Pinkham explained that the fight behind Verstappen has been where most of the action has taken place this year.

“It could actually be Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin, and that’s what has provided the entertainment this season – there’s so much else going on elsewhere,” she reasoned.

“So we can’t call it, they’ve all had their moments in the sun. It’s who gets it at the right time and whose stars are aligned to topple Max on their day. You know, it could be any one of them.”

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