‘Red Bull will hate it’ | Floor makes Mercedes and Ferrari look ‘prehistoric'

Red Bull’s domination of F1’s new regulation era continued at the Monaco Grand Prix as Max Verstappen maintained the team’s 100 percent winning start to the 2023 season. 

But not everything went right for Red Bull in Monaco, with Sergio Perez’s weekend ruined by a crash in qualifying that left him 20th on the grid. 

To make matters worse, Red Bull’s ground-effect floor design was revealed to the world as the car was hoisted away by a crane, enabling photographers to capture the underneath of the RB19 in all its glory. 

Sky Sports pitlane reporter Kravitz said Red Bull will “hate” the fact the secrets of its floor have been exposed to rival F1 teams. 

“Thanks to Perez, the whole of F1 has seen the fabled Red Bull floor,” Kravitz said. 

“See for yourself - it is a thing of wonder and beauty.

“Especially when you compare it to the floor of the Mercedes and the Ferrari, which we also saw up on cranes.

Red Bull’s floor pic.twitter.com/nphZauxrVg

— Christian Falavena (@CFalavena) May 27, 2023

“They look prehistoric. Even the little guide fences have got guide fences of their own, on the Red Bull!

“It’s so complex in three dimensions. There are elements coming down, curling round, circles where the vortex starts and the vortices is generated midway through the floor.

“Then, what they’re doing with the area under the crash structure, and the gearbox…

“I tell you, when you look at these pictures, compare them to the Mercedes and the Ferrari, it is no wonder that the RB19 is so good.

“They will hate it, of course. But, hey, blame Perez! Not our fault that we can see.”

Mercedes also had the newly-updated floor of their W14 challenger exposed following Lewis Hamilton’s crash at the end of final practice. 

Toto Wolff joked that the crane operator who hoisted the W14 into the air must have worked for the “Cique du Soleil” and admitted the unintended reveal was “suboptimal” for Mercedes.