Red Bull surprised everyone present on Tuesday afternoon by closing its garages in the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya pitlane . The reason? The two RB18s arrived in the late afternoon direct from Milton Keynes fully assembled.
This is because the team took advantage of the last moment to decide on the last pieces created in the factory, while the mechanics carried out work assembling the two cars in the assembly department.
At the moment, the Barcelona paddock breathes a special air of expectation, as if it were the first day of preseason and not the sixth race of a Formula 1 world championship that has already left a fairly clear image of what we could expect in the following quotes.
However, the Spanish GP could mark a before and after for some teams, for example, in Mercedes they decided to hold a filming day in Paul Ricard with the W13 to check the great package of improvements that they will premiere in Barcelona.
Ferrari also used one of its commercial shooting days last Friday at Monza with Charles Leclerc at the wheel to assess the Scuderia ‘s first major updates, with which they hope to recover at least two tenths a lap to continue battling Red Bull .
Aston Martin will test a “new car” with Lance Stroll, who will ditch the double bottom in favor of steeper bellies. In short, Barcelona starts the European tour and F1 seems to have responded with a series of novelties that will be introduced and that will almost completely change many of the cars that were seen in the winter tests in preseason.
With all this hype, Red Bull knew they couldn’t be left behind: Adrian Newey ‘s engineers may not have gone for an upgrade package as big as Ferrari or Mercedes , but at Milton Keynes they didn’t sit idly by, focusing on the RB18 thinning.
At Imola, a major update to the lower part of the car allowed the Austrian team to save almost four kilos, while for the Spanish Grand Prix the changes will affect other mechanical parts, bringing the car closer to the minimum weight of 798kg .
