During Saturday afternoon's Monaco Grand Prix qualifying, Red Bull Racing said goodbye to one of its only true secrets on the track.
In Formula One, just like in any performance-based activity, certain trends arise from imitation. Side pods or no side pods? Large front wing or more minimalistic?
While during the offseason building period, teams are free to be innovative without fear of teams copying them, once cars are revealed there's bound to be some emulation. But even in season, there's one part of the cars that teams seldom get to see: The floor.
The reason should be obvious, but unless something goes horribly wrong, the floor is entirely blocked from view of other teams because, well, it's underneath the car.
In Monaco, though, two teams, one of them being Red Bull, had to give up that secret.
Removing F1 cars from track in Monaco involved giving up the floor secret
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and Sergio Perez's Red Bull both had to be removed from the track. Lewis's happened during practice, while Perez's was a crash during qualifying.
Since Monaco is a street raced and awfully cramped between buildings, removing them is a precarious activity. The cars were craned 30-50 feet up in the air to get them off the track, which typically doesn't happen for incidents similar to the ones we saw on Saturday. Often, if a car gets raised at all, it's quite mangled underneath due to a catastrophic incident.
These were more minor repairs needed, so the floors were intact, yet they were displayed for all to see and document. Take a look at the bottom of the Red Bull here:
No secrets here. Thankfully for Red Bull, they have plenty of things teams can't replicate. Two of the best drivers on the grid, an exclusive partnership with Honda, and free access to caffeine.
