Newey: Red Bull thought 2023 would be a 'really tough' year

Adrian Newey thought the 2023 Formula 1 season would be "really tough" for Red Bull, despite going on to dominate the year.

The RB19 took 21 victories out of 21 races, with 19 of them coming from eventual World Champion Max Verstappen at the wheel.

Verstappen also broke a number of records on the way to his third title, with the RB19 becoming the most successful F1 car of all time.

Towards the end of the 2022 season Red Bull anticipated that Ferrari would be stronger and Mercedes would catch up, but neither managed to mount a credible challenge owing to their car design problems.

"Going into the season we thought this year was going to be really tough. The way it panned out, no one ever expected it," Newey told the Formula For Success podcast.

"But the funny thing is, when you're in it, you're just in it. You're looking forward, you're not really reflecting."

Singapore exposed weakness

Although the RB19 could impress on race day, there was still a lot of challenges the team had to overcome during a race weekend.

Newey believes there is still a lot to improve with their current package, after the race in Singapore exposed a lot of weaknesses in the RB19.

"I've never been satisfied. We've had this fantastic season, broken barriers, records, or whatever. The reality is, there's things with the car that we feel can be improved," said Newey.

"So actually you're not really thinking about that [success], it's focusing on things like 'What are the weaknesses? How can we improve that?'

"It's why Singapore was the race that we didn't win. It's quite useful for us, because we made a complete and utter arse of that if I'm honest, it exposed some weaknesses in the car.

"So that's what you've really think about is 'How can I improve that? How can I eradicate that for next year? And just move forward."