Revised Red Bull marks significant development step

Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan takes considerable pride in the team’s major update package for the Hungarian Grand Prix, describing it as “a stunning job” that was delivered ahead of schedule. The package introduced at the Hungaroring features a clear visible change to the top of the engine cover that now drops away steeply behind the cockpit compared to its previous configuration. While that is not the biggest performance differentiator of the new parts that have been developed, Monaghan says it is a significant step that has been delivered ahead of schedule. “It’s linked to temperature and the track nature, so we’ll see how it pans out here,” Monaghan said. “If the lap times are poor in relative terms, we’ll have to consider. But our belief is we’re going forward with this. Everyone at the factory has done a stunning job because we got it here earlier than expected. We’ll hopefully make good use of it. “Based upon the data we’ve got coming into this race, it should be valuable to us. I think really we rate it in terms of what everyone else has done, don’t we? We’ve made the biggest step we can make. Is it enough? We’ll find out on Sunday afternoon. That’s really the rating of it.” Monaghan acknowledged that the way that rival teams have closed in made the need to bring the upgrade forward even greater, with more developments planned through the season to try and maintain Red Bull’s advantage in the standings. “We’d looked to see how quickly we could bring this, and this is the earliest opportunity,” he said. “Everybody’s close to us, so we need to be at the top of our game and this is another small step. The upgrades — bar one part of it — are on both cars, so it’s a huge statement and thank you to everyone that’s got to this point. “It almost doesn’t matter what changes we apply to the car, it’s whether we can build the lap time consistently from it and produce a decent qualifying and race performance. So if our changes pull us away from them a little bit, then they’ve delivered what we all want. “Is it crucial to make a step? It almost doesn’t matter if we say that by the end of the season, can we be quick enough to defend our championships? We will do the utmost we can, whether it’s this weekend, Spa, Zandvoort, Monza, Baku, Singapore, so on and so forth, are all going to be crucial to us. We’ve got some biggish changes on it but I think they’re all going to be of this nature.”