"Red Bull are still the most dangerous team" - Former F1 driver claims rivals need to 'lift their games' to challenge the Austrian outfit

Former F1 driver Mark Webber feels his old team Red Bull is still the most dangerous team on the F1 grid. The Australian, talking to Motorsport, felt that despite the cost cap breach penalty, Red Bull was still the most well-rounded team.

The 2022 F1 season was statistically the best season in Red Bull's history. The team won as many as 17 races in the season and more often than not, competed for the win at every race.

It also helped that the team was able to work on its reliability after an early season stutter that saw Max Verstappen retire from two of the first three races. The team regrouped, worked on reliability and was able to dominate after that.

According to Mark Webber, both Ferrari and Mercedes had a lot to catch up to as the Austrian team was clearly the most well-rounded team on the grid. He said:

"Red Bull are still the most dangerous team. Actually, everyone has to lift their games in all aspects. We saw that Mercedes had great reliability, Ferrari of course less so. But Red Bull had good reliability and were strong at all tracks."

"And Max, it’s just ‘Formula 1 plus’ for him at times. I think the highlight for me was to see what he did through the field in Spa. That was just unbelievable.”

Webber not sure of the impact of the cost cap penalty on Red Bull

Many pundits have assumed that the cost cap breach penalty suffered by the Austrian team will put the team on the back foot. Webber was not too sure about this as he said that it was hard to make an empirical claim about the same.

He explained:

“I don’t think anyone knows really how much that’s going to impact them but I’m sure they’ve got enough creative people there to keep it going. But I think we also don’t know how much Mercedes have given up on this year. In some ways, giving up is not the right word, because there’s always some learning for next year."

He added:

“But I mean how they allocated the time, the R&D and the money under the budget cap between last year and the 2023 car. Thanks to those elements, it’s going to be fascinating to see how the first quarter plays out next season.”

The Austrian team will be defending the constructors' title for the first time in almost a decade since it last won the championship in 2013.