Red Bull RB19 F1 Car Breaks Cover and Max Verstappen Can’t Tell It Apart from the RB18

The team was adamant in its promotion of the event that the RB19 will make its first appearance in New York today, February 3, but there’s very little chance the car unveiled here is the same car Red Bull will bring to Bahrain for preseason testing in a few weeks' time.

Now, I’ve looked at this so-called RB19 and the RB18 very closely and it is obvious that the former is nothing more than a generic show car of sorts. Yes, the nose looks a little different (more yellow paint) and so does the floor, but that’s because they haven’t had a chance to tweak anything on the track yet.

Meanwhile, the engine cover is identical to the one on the RB18, and so are the side pods. As for the mirrors, which will be larger on 2023 cars, they are the same as last year. Nice try, Red Bull, but calling this car the ‘RB19’ is not very nice.

Then there’s the livery, which, again, looks more or less the same as the one on last year’s car. I mean, not even Max Verstappen could tell them apart.

This, mind you, was the first time Verstappen had seen the “RB19”, and when asked about his impressions, the Dutchman looked at the car for a brief moment and stated: “Well, I... you know... I think our livery has been pretty similar for a couple of years now,” before saying that he actually likes it and that it “shows the Red Bull colors all over the place.” - whatever that means.

That’s not exactly him being blown away by the design, I’d say. Although, who cares what it looks like as long as it performs better than, or at least as good as the RB18, which is by far Red Bull’s most successful car ever.

Overall, we knew not to expect any massive visual changes here, and that we would keep seeing the team’s traditional blue, yellow and red scheme. Speaking of colors, Red Bull will allow fans to design a special livery for the three races held in the U.S. this year (Las Vegas joining Miami and Austin), so that should be a lot of fun to watch.

Perhaps the biggest news though, even bigger than the unveiling of this “launch version RB19” is Ford returning to Formula 1 alongside Red Bull come 2026. The U.S. carmaker will act as the team’s engine partner/sponsor and visually, its Blue Oval logo should work well on any yellow bits found on whichever livery they’ll be using in three years' time. It’ll probably be the same one, by the looks of things.

As for how the team hopes to perform this year, we really can’t imagine them being as successful as they were in 2022, when they won a staggering 17 out of 22 races. Still, they are the favorites.