Juan Pablo Montoya detects deliberate Red Bull tactic to catch out rivals Mercedes
MERCEDES seemingly have plenty of work to do on their W13 to match Ferrari and Red Bull.
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Red Bull were the standout team at pre-season testing in Bahrain and Juan Pablo Montoya spotted a smart ploy by Max Verstappen's team which may have thrown off rivals Mercedes. All the talk in the paddock last week was dominated by Mercedes' bold sidepod design on the W13.
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Having won eight consecutive Constructors' Championships, Mercedes are the benchmark for every F1 team. Red Bull and Ferrari have struggled to knock Mercedes off their perch, but the new regulations have created a new opportunity to close the gap.
And, even though Mercedes' extreme design caught the attention of many, it failed to produce strong results on the track. Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell complained of issues throughout their different programmes.
It was a different story entirely in the Red Bull garage though with Verstappen and Sergio Perez finding plenty of joy in their RB18. They left it until the final day of testing to unveil their own unique sidepod design, which produced stunning results on the track.
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Subtle changes were made to what was already in place, with the top surface being less square, allowing more airflow to run through the car. And Montoya, who is still racing at the age of 46 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, believes Red Bull purposefully unveiled their new design at the latest possible chance to ensure their rivals weren't able to copy it straight away.
“When they build a car and everything, the regulations change so much that somebody is going to figure out something better than everybody else," he told Vegas Insider. "And as we saw through the testing, they are going to wait until the last minute to put all the stuff out. You looked at Mercedes in Barcelona, they looked pretty good with big sidepods.
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"Then they show up in the next test; where are the sidepods? This really tight little looking car that looks amazing. Then you look at Red Bull that looked okay, then last afternoon they put out a new update, then a new update and a new update, just to make sure they try everything at the last minute.
"The way they look at it is, everybody is going to take pictures, and everybody is going to build that kind of design in the wind tunnels to see how it works compared to their programme and their ideas. So the less days they give the teams to try the stuff, the better it is.”
There has been some suggestion that Mercedes were sandbagging in pre-season testing after reports earlier in the month indicated their new design was producing excellent results in the simulator. All will be revealed this Sunday for the first race of the season with the Bahrain Grand Prix starting at 3pm GMT.
