On a number of occasions, Max Verstappen could not be challenged for overtakes on the straights, and found it fairly easy to breeze past other drivers if he needed to. Rivals knew they had to respond to this for 2023, and so have set about improving the efficiency of their cars and wings to reduce drag.
Mercedes found it needed a pretty big step on this front from its draggy W13, but found itself at the pre-season test in Bahrain still down in the speed traps. A look at what everyone was doing showed rivals were employing medium downforce packages and, in some cases, even trying out some of their lower downforce assemblies.
