LONG READ: Are the ingredients in place for Red Bull to build a new period of dominance?

The last time Oracle Red Bull Racing embarked on a double title defence the cards were decisively stacked against the Milton Keynes squad.

In the months after Sebastian Vettel romped to his fourth title by setting a record nine wins on the bounce, and thus helped seal the team’s fourth constructors’ win, the team found itself grappling with an unwieldy and impotent new power unit and an unsettled champion who slumped to a winless full season for the first time in his F1 career and announced his departure to Ferrari before the campaign was closed out.

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Fast forward nine years and the landscape is very different. Having wrapped up both titles with the largest points haul in its history in 2022, the outfit goes into 2023 with a largely stable set of regulations, a settled technical team, a new car built on the hugely competitive platform of last year’s dominant RB18 and a driver pairing that last year won 17 of the 22 races.

“The 2022 season was amazing for us,” says Team Principal Christian Horner. “Retaining the drivers’ and reclaiming the constructors’ championship for the first time since 2013 was a huge achievement for us.

"We go into this year as the reigning champions, and our target has to be to defend both of those titles. It’s going to be a big challenge but hopefully we can keep building on the momentum we achieved in 2022.”