Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen has given his first reaction after getting behind the wheel of Red Bull's new 2023 Formula 1 car - the RB19. The two-time champion was at Silverstone on Friday for a shakedown of the new machine as Red Bull used one of their two allotted filming days in which 100km of testing is allowed. The RB19 is the second 2023 car confirmed to have hit the track, along with Alfa Romeo, who completed similar running with the C43 in Barcelona with Valtteri Bottas. It is the car Verstappen will be hoping that can guide him to a third successive World Championship following his hard-fought and crushing displays in 2021 and 2022. And the Dutch was more than happy with what he felt during the day's running.
"I've just driven the RB19 for the first time, and of course it was a filming day, but it was a good first impression," Verstappen said in a short clip posted to Red Bull's Twitter account. "Everything went really well, really smooth so it is exactly what you want from a day like this and now I am very excited to go to Bahrain [for pre-season testing and the first race]."
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Day 1 with the RB19 ✅ More to come in Bahrain 🔜 pic.twitter.com/qAOe3R3T21 — Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) February 10, 2023
First footage emerges
This was the first time the RB19 was seen in public, albeit in a behind-closed-doors environment with no media or fans officially invited. However, some eagled-eyes fans ventured to Silverstone to capture the first footage of the RB19 on track. Although it is hard to make out any fine details on the car, it appears to be more of a case of 'evolution' than 'revolution' by design chief Adrian Newey and his team following the all-conquering RB18 of 2022.
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New RB19 @redbullracing #F1 #F12023 #redbullracing #RedBull pic.twitter.com/Fr0zgrrEaq — TORNADO (@otabil_fernando) February 10, 2023
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