2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[organic]

Basically this concedes that the idea that the round 3-5 update can bring wins again is highly unlikely

True, but I think the next 3 races are naturally much more kind to Red Bull. Australia and Shanghai are fundamentally two of the absolute worst circuits to have opened the season with for a Red Bull chassis.

I think that in Japan/Jeddah/Bahrain, Max can race in that territory like Spain/Imola/Qatar last season where Mclaren is still quicker, but not so quick that Max can't make any difference? Suzuka is a Max track. Jeddah should suit the car's aero efficiency (area where Mclaren appears weak so far). Mclaren speculated that they would be weaker in Bahrain as well.

I really do think the flex wings thing is not an insignificant detail. It was delayed until Rd 9 at the insistence of the teams who felt they would be impacted the most. Compare that to how quickly the rear wing stuff was addressed. The Mclaren drivers are saying that car is tricky to drive so losing that front wing might disrupt them a bit. Who knows.

The rest of the season needs some good development from Red Bull combined with Mclaren getting nerfed a bit by the front wing test changes.

Red bull having the best pace at the end of the race in china was also intriguing. It is the first time we've seen this characteristic for over 12 months? While it's been something McLaren have benefited from for a similar amount of time. The data from China might provide opportunity for learnings. Maybe the team can find a way of keeping this while improving performance on softer rubber/higher fuel.

Considering McL39 is a tricky car already, certainly a TD affecting their FWs significantly could hurt them. I fear the clampdown on flex is not significant enough to do sufficient damage alone though. Like you suggest it'll require strong development (though I wholly believe this to be possible). Surely our development pathways are very open now that the car is very balanced and conservative in base design? They also changed the internals of the sidepods to enable aerodynamic development possibilities (according to waché) and then made sidepods that are basically the same as the previous ones

[ringo]

The car being difficult to drive is an indictment on the team if the car does not have the excuse of being the fastest car.
What's the point of a wild bronco of a car if it's so far off the lead car the McLaren?
Redbull need to change philosophy, because it's not working anymore.
My suspicion about this car is not that it's hard to drive.. I think it's hard to mange the front and rear axle temperatures. Max is able to do this whereas Perez always struggled.
I doesn't add up that the car is so nervous yet it doesnt perform. What qualifying and the race showed in China is the car is very sensitive to tyre prep and management. Max is a master at car control. So maybe can multi task driving on the limit and keeping they front and rear axle in the right temperature balance.
I don't think the car is hard to drive mechanically or aerodynamically. Looks more like the enigma is the tyre energy management.

[JordanMugen]

Redbull need to change philosophy, because it's not working anymore.
My suspicion about this car is not that it's hard to drive.. I think it's hard to mange the front and rear axle temperatures.

The latter is a good point.

I don't agree with the former, as Max is only 9 points off the WDC lead which is not a disaster by any means. Both Max and George are still in contention unless McLaren consistently wins every race without fail.

It's the last year of the rules cycle, they cannot afford to "tame" the car and lose performance.

For 2026, Red Bull can design their clean sheet car however they wish. No pressure on Wache and company.

I agree. The fact that Red Bull has always suffered at FRONT limited circuits, since 2022, shows this has never been a pointy car. The opposite actually. A car that refuses to turn in low and medium speed corners. The pointy cars are the Mclaren and the Mercedes. Those cars have a nose that inserts itself so well which is why they don't overstress the front tires on front limited circuits.

Have the McLaren and Mercedes always been like that in this rules cycle, or only since they got a flexi front wing (alledgedly)?

I don't recall the McLaren or Mercedes being particularly amazing at rotation in 2022.

[Paa]

Red bull having the best pace at the end of the race in china was also intriguing. It is the first time we've seen this characteristic for over 12 months? While it's been something McLaren have benefited from for a similar amount of time. The data from China might provide opportunity for learnings. Maybe the team can find a way of keeping this while improving performance on softer rubber/higher fuel.

I wonder whether the good end-race pace was due to low fuel or tyre wear, or something else?
Max did not show this characteristic during sprint so they must have done something with the setup to bring this up.
I think it is tyre related. It seemed to me that Max had pace to spare at the end of his conservative medium stint as well.
It would be really promising if this could be replicated in the future.

[Seanspeed]

Basically this concedes that the idea that the round 3-5 update can bring wins again is highly unlikely

Always was.

[AR3-GP]

Red bull having the best pace at the end of the race in china was also intriguing. It is the first time we've seen this characteristic for over 12 months? While it's been something McLaren have benefited from for a similar amount of time. The data from China might provide opportunity for learnings. Maybe the team can find a way of keeping this while improving performance on softer rubber/higher fuel.

Considering McL39 is a tricky car already, certainly a TD affecting their FWs significantly could hurt them. I fear the clampdown on flex is not significant enough to do sufficient damage alone though. Like you suggest it'll require strong development (though I wholly believe this to be possible). Surely our development pathways are very open now that the car is very balanced and conservative in base design? They also changed the internals of the sidepods to enable aerodynamic development possibilities (according to waché) and then made sidepods that are basically the same as the previous ones

I wouldn't say Max's pace at the end was "the best". We can't be sure how much Piastri was pushing and technically Norris has the fastest lap of the race (by just thousandths over Max). However, it was one of the fastest. What was also interesting to me is the fact that he was not only getting faster, but also feeling good with the balance on a hard tire. This is something we also haven't seen in 12 months. Hard tires have always been like "driving on ice" in 2023 and 2024 (Canada '23, Spain '24, Miami '24, Imola '24 etc).

That's what makes me think the RB21 is fundamentally different in its mechanics to the RB20 and even the RB19. So, this car could have a window for development that doesn't have the same buried mines as the RB20. As you said, the changes on the surface look quite basic, so I think there's a lot of room to improve.

[organic]

Basically this concedes that the idea that the round 3-5 update can bring wins again is highly unlikely

Always was.

Of course, but when the person who says it has more information than us maybe we should listen. Then he contradicts it so it has less weight (even less, sure)

[AR3-GP]

Have the McLaren and Mercedes always been like that in this rules cycle, or only since they got a flexi front wing (alledgedly)?

I don't recall the McLaren or Mercedes being particularly amazing at rotation in 2022.

Mercedes yes. I think Hamilton was on a pole in Hungary 2022? They were also quick in Brazil 2022, Spain 2022 and other front limited circuits.

[organic]

Have the McLaren and Mercedes always been like that in this rules cycle, or only since they got a flexi front wing (alledgedly)?

I don't recall the McLaren or Mercedes being particularly amazing at rotation in 2022.

Mercedes yes. I think Hamilton was on a pole in Hungary 2022? They were also quick in Brazil 2022, Spain 2022 and other front limited circuits.

Yup mercedes was very pointy since beginning of these regs. Early 2023 they lost some of that but their Silverstone FW upgrade that year reintroduced the pointyness. Again beginning of '24 it was bad then Monaco they brought flexiwing and they had good front end

[AR3-GP]

I think any team saying the flexi-front wing change won't hurt them is lying. Those front wings were part of noticeable uptick in form for many teams. Mercedes had an upturn when they introduced their wing. Alpine also had a big upturn last year when they introduced that flexi-front wing. Ferrari was very happy with the one they brought for COTA.

There's a reason that it was pushed for Rd 9. It's too important to just change the test from one weekend to the next. Certain teams fought for it to be delayed.

[organic]

Next time they can't be so conversative with the first stint. Max could've been p2 potentially

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen also does not back down when it comes to racing. Horner said, "Max is working harder than I've ever seen him. He's more integrated into the engineering group than I've ever seen, and as he said, he seems to be enjoying that aspect so he's not getting super stressed; he's, of course, like any driver impatient for performance, but he's working with the engineers to say okay what about this, what about this, this is what I'm experiencing as a driver, this is where I need the lap time from, and that's the only way you're able to get performance."

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/334932/h ... ances.html

[AR3-GP]

Next time they can't be so conversative with the first stint

I don't see the problem with the 1st stint. The race sim on mediums in FP1 was absolutely awful. They almost got passed by Russell and Leclerc towards the end of the sprint. To that point, the medium tire wasn't looking great for them. They acted based on information that they gathered from the previous days. To do otherwise would have been gambling. It's only with hindsight that we can say they could go faster.

[Xyz22]

At one point if the rear of the car isn't able to follow the front even drivers like Max, Leclerc can't keep up with cars that have more downforce and better balance.
McLaren has a pointy car because they also have a rear end that can "follow" it quite well.

The rear of the SF 25 is also problematic apparently, which is also hampering Lewis in high speed corners.

The absolute master of this driving style was Schumacher but even with his immense talent he couldn't keep up on a regular basis against Newey rocket ships that just had way more downforce.

The difference is that Ferrari started to care about Irvine, Badoer and Rubens feedback and improved the balance of the car year after year, with the peak being the F 2002 which is arguably the most balanced car of all time in race trim.

[organic]

Next time they can't be so conversative with the first stint

I don't see the problem with the 1st stint. The race sim on mediums in FP1 was absolutely awful. They almost got passed by Russell and Leclerc towards the end of the sprint. To that point, the medium tire wasn't looking great for them. They acted based on information that they gathered from the previous days. To do otherwise would have been gambling. It's only with hindsight that we can say they could go faster.

That's fair enough. They drove 0.8s per lap slower than the leaders though. I think they should've listened to the driver more than their data which is something they seem to do less nowadays (post-newey difference?)

Good discussion about the car

Hopefully they can replicate the behaviour with the rubber that we saw on Sunday in future races