Red Bull's Adrian Newey gives his verdict on the first set of upgrades introduced by the team in Japan

Red Bull's aero wizard, Adrian Newey, was more or less satisfied with the first set of upgrades brought to the car in Japan. The Austrian team faced its first loss of the season in Melbourne and the team had a set of upgrades ready for the car for the very next race.

As it turned out, the upgrades aided the performance, as Red Bull and Max Verstappen were once again in a league of their own. The Dutch driver got his third pole position of the year at the Japanese GP and had teammate Sergio Perez alongside him.

The race also featured clear dominance from Red Bull from start to finish. Max Verstappen won the race and was almost 20 seconds ahead of Carlos Sainz. Talking to Ted Kravitz of Sky Sports, Adrian Newey was questioned if the upgrades had the desired impact.

The Red Bull aero chief felt that the upgrades gave the team the desired performance even though he felt the team would still have been comfortable without them. He said:

“Well we know what performance it theoretically gave. As far as we can see from the pressure sensors and load cells then it delivered what it said on the tin from the wind tunnel."

Newey added:

“It was a small step forward. I think this weekend we’d probably have been OK anyway. We all know it’s going to tighten up so we just keep pushing.”

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Red Bull RB20 is a more extreme version of the original car according to Newey

Newey credited the entire team back at Milton Keynes for the work that had been done on the car. Talking about why there were so many radical changes to the car, Newey felt that with the regulations being prescriptive in nature, the field would continue to get closer.

When that happens, Red Bull has to work hard to find performance and maintain that gap. The RB20, according to Newey, was just a more extreme version of the RB18, as he said (via Sky Sports):

“It’s a credit to all the guys back at the factory honestly. We have got a tremendous team of engineers. That spreads to the whole organisation. Their enthusiasm, drive and creativity is what you see here before you. The architecture of the car has stayed very similar, a third generation since 2022."

He added:

“The aero principals which you now see on this year’s car compared to last year is a route we were taking really since early 2022. It’s just a more extreme version or route down that same path.”

The Austrian team is expected to continue its dominance this season. The car has a decent headstart over everybody else and it would be harder for any other team to catch up in the next 20 races.