Presentation of new cars: Red Bull RB19

The Red Bull Racing team held a presentation of the RB19, the 2023 car, in New York. It lasted over an hour and was designed in the traditional American style, it looked quite pompous and bright, but there was a minimum information about the car itself.

There was cheerful background music, everyone was impressed by excellent videos and possibly fireworks, but the performances of the main characters were quite generic, with the exception of one – the official announcement of a future collaboration with Ford Corporation, which will be the new partner of Ford from 2026. Red Bull Racing in the field of engine construction.

Christian Horner, team boss: “It’s great to be in New York, because the US plays a big role in Formula 1 these days – three Grands Prix will be held here, because this year the race in Las Vegas is on the championship calendar. So this is the right place to introduce RB19 and talk about our plans for the season.

And it promises to be incredibly interesting. Naturally, our rivals do not stand still. We expect Ferrari to be very competitive, just like Mercedes, but other teams can also make significant progress.

This time of year is characterized by some uncertainty, but now the most important thing is to focus on your own tasks and tackle them as best you can. And only then, at the testing in Bahrain, which starts in a few weeks, will we see all the teams’ cars – then it will become clear whether we have missed something or not. Then we will begin our 23-race journey, and it will last from March to November. I have no doubt that there will be successes and failures along the way, but I think we have prepared well for it and will try to maintain the momentum we achieved last year.

Of course the technical regulations remain very stable, so we have learned all the lessons from last year’s experience, because the RB18 was our most successful car. The RB19 has minor changes to the aerodynamic body kit, but this applies to all teams as everyone tries to optimize and improve the performance of their cars.

In addition, we have slightly different tires this year. Overall, we can say that the RB19 embodies all the strengths of its predecessor, which was once again the most successful car in our team’s history.”

Max Verstappen: “This is my first time seeing the RB19, but the approach to painting our cars has been pretty much the same for years. But I think the car looks great! She’s wearing the Red Bull colors that have been a huge success for us – so why change anything?

Of course, the logos of our new partners appeared on the car, and this is also very important.

So far I have only tested the new car on a simulator. After last year I had a pretty good idea of ​​what I want to achieve with it, what exactly needs to be improved, although I can’t comment in detail now. But in general we are talking about the fact that we are constantly striving to improve the technique and on the simulator we tried to get a picture that corresponds as much as possible to the behavior of a real car on the track. It’s an ongoing process, but the first impressions of the RB19 are very good.”

Sergio Perez: “When you see a new car for the first time, you get excited. You realize that the season will start soon and you are already looking forward to it. It will take a very long time, there will be a lot of races, so it is very important to get to know the RB19 as well as possible during the testing in Bahrain, to see how good it is, and let’s hope that this work will end well and be the start of a great season.

Daniel Rickardoreserve driver: “In a few weeks I will start working on a team-based simulator, there will be a lot of work because my contribution, mainly behind the scenes, is to help the team fine-tune the car, understand the direction that Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez wants to kick in, and also apply my personal experience, check my impressions with him, which I will share with the team’s engineers.

In fact, the ceremony consisted of two presentations, as shortly before it started, the return to Formula 1 of Ford Corporation, which will become a new partner of Red Bull Racing from 2026, was officially announced. After the presentation of the livery of the RB19 car, Jim Farley, the executive director of the American company, took the stage.

Jim Farley: “After almost 20 years, Ford is returning to Formula 1. As good business people we have explored many options. We wanted to go in the direction that felt most natural to us. That is why we have decided to enter into a strategic and technical partnership with Red Bull Powertrains to enter Formula 1 in 2026.

We want to help Christian Horner, his great drivers and the entire Red Bull team achieve high results on the track. This is a very important moment for the Ford family, as our company employs nearly 200,000 people worldwide.

We’re excited about the prospects of working with this team on the technology front, and we’ll be learning from them as well. After all, in Formula 1, the best aerodynamics experts in the world work for the Red Bull team.”

But closer to the end of the presentation, everyone witnessed a somewhat strange moment when the host solemnly announced that a special guest would now appear – Stefano Domenicali. Thunderous applause broke out, but the president of Formula 1 did not take the podium. The presenters assured the audience with two voices that he was about to come, they decided to fill the break by continuing the conversation with Daniel Riccardo, after which they had to announce again that Domenicali would not participate in the event in New York after all York .