Paul Monaghan: Lap time is our currency

Red Bull often say that rivals borrow their ideas, but in Formula 1 everyone keeps a close eye on rivals for new solutions.

Paul Monaghan, Red Bull Racing’s chief race engineer, admitted that the team had borrowed some ideas from Williams – they increased the curvature of the diffuser edges in Spain to increase downforce.

Paul Monaghan: “Before the car goes on a fast lap, you don’t know if it’s good or not. Our currency is lap time.

Rounding at the bottom appeared in 2022 at Williams and other teams. We have considered this idea several times, it seemed to us that it gives a very insignificant advantage, but the possibilities for improvement in that area are very limited. But we did it – and it works.

Our backside, which everyone saw in Monaco? It’s not great that rivals now have detailed photos of him. Usually we don’t put the car in public, but it happened, we move on.

There is a certain delay between when the opponents saw our decision and when they were able to repeat it, having achieved some kind of speed increase because of it. And it’s not just the geometry of the bottom – everything is much more complicated. I don’t think this will happen until the Japanese Grand Prix.

Not the fact that our soil will work with rivals. Close integration of all elements is important. Further refinement of our car has been well thought out, perhaps something needs to be done faster. We have no influence on what the opponents do. We will continue to work in our own way and try to be the fastest.”