Going into the 2022 F1 season, everyone had their doubts and concerns. How will the cars perform? Will they be competitive enough? Will they be fast enough, and will the drivers be comfortable driving them? Some teams checked a few of the boxes on this list; the rest checked a few more. But Red Bull checked all of them after early setbacks and delivered a behemoth car, driven and ruled by Max Verstappen.

The team had everything figured out and had the formula for the best car on the grid, ending the season as high as they possibly could with a huge lead over its closest competitors, Ferrari and Mercedes. But as the team unveiled its 2023 livery for the upcoming season and went on for the first shakedown of the season at Silverstone behind closed doors, the fans with cat eyes noticed several changes in the RB19, which are rumored to be close to the philosophy of the Silver Arrows.

If true, it’ll be interesting given how Mercedes struggled to make its car work with zeropods and a wider nose, yet Red Bull went ahead with it. However, nothing is certain until the first official appearance during the first pre-season testing.

As understood from the interpretation made at Planet F1, it is not quite in the zero-pod zone, but it is getting close because the sidepods seem to flatten out toward the back. A larger nose and an air intake design that appears to share Mercedes’ concept are two other findings mentioned. Alternatively, it’s possible that this is just another Red Bull ruse and their real vehicle is still secret, as was the case with Mercedes until the car actually got down on the track.

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It’ll be exciting and impressive to see if Red Bull actually proceeds with this and makes it work better than Mercedes. However, we are just getting started and are yet to see what Mercedes has learned and improved upon.

Max Verstappen on his first run in the car

It seems that Max Verstappen was the first of the two Red Bull drivers to get behind the RB19’s steering wheel at Silverstone. The driver shared his experience after the test and was visibly and unsurprisingly impressed with the car’s performance.

As quoted by PlanetF1, the Dutchman said, “I’ve just driven the RB19 for the first time. Of course, it’s a filming day, but I think it was a good first impression, everything worked really well, everything worked really smooth, so that’s exactly what you want from a day like this.”

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Max Verstappen and Red Bull might have chosen a different approach for filming. But they both know they can’t afford to risk anything with the team’s and Verstappen’s titles on the line.