2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[ringo]

My comment still stands. The car is not any different or worse than others on the grid.

.

"By continuing to improve and experiment throughout the weekend, we eventually found a balance that was at least driveable for me.
I was able to push a bit more. With little fuel in the car and over one lap, you can mask the problems quite nicely", Verstappen said.
"But it is not that everything is suddenly solved by this pole."

"We clearly still have problems, which are also not easy to solve. We are working hard on that." Those problems also have an impact on the confidence that Verstappen has in his Red Bull. "I just don't go into a qualifying lap like that very comfortably and with confidence." Max Verstappen in the special Honda colours at Suzuka.

Yes sounds like Mercedes in 2022, 2023, 2024.
They also had highs and lows.

Anyhow despite Mclaren having the better car, Max has a small chance of winning. Lando or Piastri with 2 cars up front have the advantage with strategy then tyre life so the chances are low. Max however may be able to deffend with his top speed while the tyres are still good. He can wait for the rain and see if the Mclarens trip over themselves. Otherwise it's hard to see how he can win unless the car magically improves.
Which as he says the problems are there still. Sounds like floor issues with rideheight.

[napoleon1981]

So much for difficult car. Myth busted. The car only needed a quick #2 with a few years experience.
Good for him, but all is not safe. He still has the whole weekend. I think things will be a little more tentative in qualifying.
Yuki may have a little more engine mode, but we really don't know. Otherwise he is still within a tenth on the twisty sectors. Not bad.
The constructors is possible if Yuki is really this close.

Post busted.

[ringo]

Okay. Remember the post every race after this.

[Silent Storm]

RB have missed a beat with the rear flexiwing. McLaren can basically get similar downforce as the spec Yuki ran, with similar drag as the spec Max ran (without DRS) in one wing.

This 100%
Hopefully, the crisis meeting Helmut mentioned pushed the team to bring forward a more flexible rear wing. Since the rear wing doesn’t impact the floor or sidepods, it’s a low-risk upgrade. Even if the advantage only lasts 4–5 races, it’s worth pursuing. They can always revert to the current spec later if rules tighten up, while other teams would have to spend resources to reinforce theirs.

[ringo]

From Max's feedback I dont think the car's philosophy works with a flexiwing.
The car seems like it has very high load philosophy. Going even higher in load for the corners for the wing to flex on the straight maybe doesnt help them as much, who knows. Maybe rhe tyres would overheat more?
But i feel the team would have built a flexi wing already if it worked with their car.

[f1isgood]

RB have missed a beat with the rear flexiwing. McLaren can basically get similar downforce as the spec Yuki ran, with similar drag as the spec Max ran (without DRS) in one wing.

This 100%
Hopefully, the crisis meeting Helmut mentioned pushed the team to bring forward a more flexible rear wing. Since the rear wing doesn’t impact the floor or sidepods, it’s a low-risk upgrade. Even if the advantage only lasts 4–5 races, it’s worth pursuing. They can always revert to the current spec later if rules tighten up, while other teams would have to spend resources to reinforce theirs.

Indeed, Red Bull should do something about the whole element moving and add it for the next few races.

That said, Red Bull's modus operandi this entire regulation from what I can see is been hyper-focus on the floor. They never worked properly on the wings, and the mechanical grip side of things was also always weak.

Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have all developed these things much more this entire regulation set. They also added a bunch of outwash and dirty air generating things which the FIA kept ignoring and the quality of racing is indeed low now as passing seems much harder this year.

Not even having a Monza-spec wing is fairly crazy but anyways.

[Henk_v]

https://x.com/SCUDERIAFEMBOY/status/1908439077155721471

Very good corner by corner explanation by Verstappen, if he had a good car this would be 1s over anyone else.

it was a good lap, but 1s better than everyone else would basically mean that the Red Bull is the slowest car on the grid.

Wouldn't you chew of an arm to see verstappen switch with Sainz for one race?

[Paa]

The real greatness in Max is not about nailing a lap like this. Every driver has a few special laps in their carrier. What makes Max outstanding is that he does this kind of maximization in every weekend and I don't even remember when was the last time he crashed in qualy? Probably 2021 Jeddah? But that was also somewhat calculated when he had nothing to lose. This is where he excels Leclerc for example, who is fully capable of laps like this, but makes just as many silly errors while doing so.

Also the shout after the pole and the genuine happiness makes me doubt that he really would leave the sport in a few years. Guy is clearly more motivated than ever and also seems to enjoy it.

[Seanspeed]

The real greatness in Max is not about nailing a lap like this. Every driver has a few special laps in their carrier. What makes Max outstanding is that he does this kind of maximization in every weekend and I don't even remember when was the last time he crashed in qualy? Probably 2021 Jeddah? But that was also somewhat calculated when he had nothing to lose. This is where he excels Leclerc for example, who is fully capable of laps like this, but makes just as many silly errors while doing so.

Also the shout after the pole and the genuine happiness makes me doubt that he really would leave the sport in a few years. Guy is clearly more motivated than ever and also seems to enjoy it.

It's hard to tell cuz Leclerc has had extremely competitive teammates his whole career. Any little thing he does wrong gets more amplified when he has a teammate who might beat him because of it.

I do think Max is better than Charles overall, but I'm not sure it's the best example in this situation. Let's not pretend Max is putting it on pole every weekend in inferior machinery. This is his first feature race pole position in quite a while. An insane lap, one to remember, but he's not doing this every weekend. Same as Leclerc.

[Paa]

The real greatness in Max is not about nailing a lap like this. Every driver has a few special laps in their carrier. What makes Max outstanding is that he does this kind of maximization in every weekend and I don't even remember when was the last time he crashed in qualy? Probably 2021 Jeddah? But that was also somewhat calculated when he had nothing to lose. This is where he excels Leclerc for example, who is fully capable of laps like this, but makes just as many silly errors while doing so.

Also the shout after the pole and the genuine happiness makes me doubt that he really would leave the sport in a few years. Guy is clearly more motivated than ever and also seems to enjoy it.

It's hard to tell cuz Leclerc has had extremely competitive teammates his whole career. Any little thing he does wrong gets more amplified when he has a teammate who might beat him because of it.

I do think Max is better than Charles overall, but I'm not sure it's the best example in this situation. Let's not pretend Max is putting it on pole every weekend in inferior machinery. This is his first feature race pole position in quite a while. An insane lap, one to remember, but he's not doing this every weekend. Same as Leclerc.

My post was not about Leclerc, it was just a very easy and obvious example of someone who does spectacular things on both end of the spectrum.
Also I didn't say Max puts it on pole every weekend. But he is very close to maximizing his possibilities almost every time. And he does that by making very minimal number of mistakes.
So his peak performance / lame mistake ratio is super impressive.

[Seanspeed]

My post was not about Leclerc, it was just a very easy and obvious example of someone who does spectacular things on both end of the spectrum.
Also I didn't say Max puts it on pole every weekend. But he is very close to maximizing his possibilities almost every time. And he does that by making very minimal number of mistakes.
So his peak performance / lame mistake ratio is super impressive.

It's small, often imperceptible(when not compared in a direct side by side) mistakes that create the difference between good and great drivers(over time). Verstappen had the ability to get pole in the Sprint race in China, for example. But he messed up a couple corners in small ways, when Lewis didn't. This doesn't mean Lewis is a better driver, just that Max did fail to extract the most out of the car even when he was still miles ahead of his teammate.

But nobody would accuse Max of not being a great driver, it's just no driver can be perfect all the time. And it's very much worth noting that Leclerc deals with a much, much higher caliber of teammate competition than Max. I know your point isn't about Leclerc specifically, but on one lap pace, I think Leclerc is probably every bit Max's equal in pulling out laps that push beyond what people expect from the car, and even when not, are still there putting it in a competitive situation.

Leclerc's deficit to Max is probably moreso in bigger mistakes. Leclerc certainly makes some boneheaded mistakes that cost him results. And Max is better in a greater range of adverse situations(at least today, earlier on not so much).

[Chuckjr]

The micro-corrections during the first and second corners especially reminded me of what Senna used to do. Just incredible. Max went up another echelon for me yesterday. I am absolutely blown away with that lap.

[Sergej]

Pit stop was slow (3.3s) but I have the doubt they had to let Leclerc pass.

Max is doing a mega job.

[Sergej]

wtf did that message on flap mean ?

[Sergej]

yesssssssss guys

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