Nothing that’s happened in F1 testing has dented Red Bull’s status as pre-season favourite in 2023. It set an ominous pace over the three days in Bahrain and once again looks like the car to beat. What testing has done is prove that main rivals Ferrari, which looked quick over a lap but struggled more over long runs, and Mercedes, which battled balance problems, are determined to go their own way with their cars. Other than Mercedes and Ferrari, almost every team in F1 has edged more in the direction of Red Bull’s concept – save for Haas, which is locked into a more Ferrari-esque style owing to their shared components. That’s because Red Bull is F1’s most successful car and, presumably, because those teams have evaluated Red Bull’s ideas back at their factories and seen enough to make them believe it’s the right way to go for these still-young ground effect regulations. So why are Mercedes and Ferrari so convinced that their alternative approaches are going to work? Just how different