Red Bull test their 2023 F1 challenger in a secret shakedown at Silverstone

Red Bull recently tested their new 2023 F1 challenger, RB19, for the first time in a secret shakedown at Silverstone. The British-Austrian team hosted a car launch where they showcased their 2023 car and also announced their new partnership with Ford, which will take effect in 2026. However, the car that was showcased at the launch was not the actual RB19. The chassis of the car will be drastically different, and hence, the entire shakedown was a complete secret.

Though it was a secret shakedown, Red Bull's social media department posted a video of their new car speeding past the start-finish line. Of course, no one knows exactly what the team was testing during this shakedown.

However, we do hear from the reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, who made a video of him sharing his first thoughts after driving the RB19. The video was also posted on Red Bull's official Twitter handle, in which the Dutchman said:

"So just driven the RB19 for the first time. Of course it's a filming day, but I think it was the first good impression. Everything worked really well, everything worked really smooth. Exactly what you want from a day like this, and now I am of course very excited to go to Bahrain."

Verstappen confirmed that the shakedown was essentially for filming the car. We did not see Sergio Perez anywhere in any of the videos, though he might have been present at Silverstone and must've driven the car as well. However, nothing can be said for sure as not much information is available about the shakedown.

Of course, there might be some restrictions as to what the teams can test before the actual official testing that will take place in Bahrain starting on February 23rd, 2023.

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Red Bull team boss revealed several unnecessary expenses spent to cure porpoising

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner recently shared how expenses spent on reducing the porpoising in the 2022 F1 season were wasted since the FIA was eventually going to impose new rules to reduce it in 2023. Horner told Auto Motor und Sport:

“I think we have to wait and see, the first snapshot will be testing in Bahrain. It’s a little bit strange, because obviously there was a big push to get all of this changed, and the changes came through around Spa last year. But by the end of the year, there was very little porpoising.”

He added:

“My argument at the time was will it not just get sorted out, which it did. So we’ve gone through quite a lot of expense, for all the teams in a big regulation change that probably wasn’t needed.”

Though Red Bull was able to tackle porpoising in the best way possible, they had to comply with the rule changes imposed by the FIA.