2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[pipoloko]

I’ve been wondering — if Max had gone with a Hard/Medium strategy, could the result have been better, maybe even P2?
What do you guys think about that?

[Chuckjr]

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.

Really great insight. Thank you.

[AR3-GP]

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.

There is something that they are missing. Remember Australia. The same thing happened. The pace comes back at the end of the stint.

[organic]

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.

There is something that they are missing. Remember Australia. The same thing happened. The pace comes back at the end of the stint.

https://i.postimg.cc/0yGC6JKc/image.png

Hmm this feels like maybe we're about 12 months behind McLaren in terms of understanding the tyres. The mcl38 (relative to the competition) was often slow in the first stint and then would come alive in the second half of the race and especially the last laps.

[Vettel165]

It could be our lack of testing laps this year in Bahrain. This is why I told you China was just like a test session for Red Bull. The more laps we get, the better we will know the car. I think the base is better than we had last year at the end of the season. They just have to extract more perfomance from the car.

[Seanspeed]

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

I dont think anybody would ever criticize Max for not working enough to make himself and the package more competitive. It's whether or not the team itself can provide Max with the improvements he's after that will determine whether he gets fed up over time and wants to leave. Let's be real here, Max is the star of the show at RB, and it's the team that needs to prove themselves to keep him there, not the other way around.

[organic]

If Max thought there was no chance of a title he wouldn't bother working so hard in my opinion

We've seen a number of statements recently about Max becoming increasingly involved in more of a leadership role with the engineering side, not just trackside as perhaps was the case before. Maybe that's the next step of his evolution as a driver

[Cassius]

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.

There is something that they are missing. Remember Australia. The same thing happened. The pace comes back at the end of the stint.

https://i.postimg.cc/0yGC6JKc/image.png

Hmm this feels like maybe we're about 12 months behind McLaren in terms of understanding the tyres. The mcl38 (relative to the competition) was often slow in the first stint and then would come alive in the second half of the race and especially the last laps.

Could this be related to flexwing behaviour? When the fuel burns off, speeds increase, wing flexes more and the balance in medium speed improves. On high fuel, the lower speeds lead to more understeer, which effects deg.

Same behaviour that could be seen on the McLaren last year, where Max was often still faster in the first stint.

[Henk_v]

I think the decision was not made yet.

This article seems better than that sky article.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/red- ... mediately/

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

As far as I can tell everybody is framing one specific comment from Horner. Horner speaks about analysing the data and Marko speaks of a meeting to discuss on how to move forward.

For me it is very clear they changed the setup of Lawson to get a dataset. He was never going to reach into the points.

If I had to guess they set up his suspension softer and monitored the deg to prepare for the kerby circuits coming up.

I therefore do not read it as a horrible Lawson weekend. He was sandbagged. And nobody at Red Bull actually said anything other than positive things about his performance. Het did a bad quali and then repaid the team with data.

Horner said they would review the data and determine the way forward. From what I am reading he is referring to updates in hardware, not drivers.

[euv2]

https://x.com/F1BigData/status/1904215231577874619

Looking at the medium stint deg compared to the MCL, RB were way too conservative on that stint. Verstappen said the tires were still good and he was driving to a delta. I wonder what could have been if they let Verstappen push on a bit and let him hang close to drivers in front. Max final lap on mediums was 0.6s faster than his previous lap and at that pace he was 0.4s off Norris' pace which was much better than almost 1s he was losing previously.

Lots to learn about the tires from that race, even Lawson's stints are interesting, his medium stint started with a 1:37.699 and ended with a 1:37.787, he had very little deg, perhaps he could have gone long like Ollie too but RB were probably more interested in running their plan.

[Emag]

All teams got caught out by the lack of deg in the race compared to what they saw in the sprint. RedBull might have been worried the tires would fall off the cliff unless they took it easy. It was really that bad on the sprint.

[toraabe]

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/10448 ... son-issue/

I really feel sorry for Lawson. I think that only Verstappen and Riccardo can handle the RB21.

[venkyhere]

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/10448 ... son-issue/

I really feel sorry for Lawson. I think that only Verstappen and Riccardo can handle the RB21.

Ricciardo ? Really ? Don't fall for such media 'scoops'. It's absolute BS, this. Some notty reporter is trying to hand over a fire extinguisher filled with aviation fuel, to a team that is trying to put out a campfire that has set ablaze the sleeping tent.

[ringo]

Yuki can handle B21. Lawson could if he could figure out the puzzle. I suspect Max has a contract clause that prevents the team from sharing his techniques with teammates.
*And no telemetry wont show it all).
I mentioned before the front and rear axle temperature enigma with these max cars. People keep saying the car is edgy.. but we just dont see the cars being oversteery or spinning around a lot when these supposedly lesser drivers push. There is more to the car. It is tricky. But it's not simply oversteer because we are not seeing snapping or spinning when others try too hard.
Max is very peculiar with his corner entry coupled with PU and downshift calibration. It could be the other drivers just aren't that smart or detailed to deep dive into what it takes to get the car in the goldie locks zone in the corners.
Max's eaerly breaking has more meaning to it that just a driving style. It may well be what's required and not simply a style he drives.
The instability in the car doesnt facilitate last minute braking, the driver just wont have enough time to react when the instability sets in. That could be where the edgyness lies.
It needs to be balanced on a kife edge going in, and Max alone of the RB drivers has the "touch".

[Emag]

Max is just extremely good at inducing rotation under braking. That is not something you teach, it's a matter of feel. If you don't have the right feel you just can't do it. And it's all a matter of balance. You need to be critical on steering input and you need to be critical on throttle application, because pedals are not just for "going fast and slowing down", they're a weight shifting tool.

You brake, weight is shifted forwards. You push on the throttle, weight is shifted backwards.
And this is important, because by lightly loading the fronts, you can actually get a bit more front grip and 'push' the car to whatever direction it is currently headed. Also an unloaded rear, counter-intuitively, sometimes can be settled down by applying a little more throttle (context is important here, this is only true if it happens as a result of over-rotation at the front. If you actually brake the grip-limit of the rear tires, there's nothing that can save you from a spin).

This video (more simracing oriented, but the technique mirrors real life) is probably the one that explains the 'braking' rotation the best

Now all of this, brings me back to the 'feel' point that I made earlier. If you don't have the proper feel, you try to do it 'manually', but this almost never works out. You have to drive on instinct and let your 'feel' guide the car through the corner. It's glaringly obvious in the telemetry that Lawson has no feel with this car whatsoever. Especially in qualifying in China. Not a single lap by Lawson was driven the same. Sometimes he brakes early, sometimes he brakes late. Sometimes he carries the brakes for longer, sometimes he waits to get on the throttle. It's just different almost every single lap. He is just trying to get laptime somehow, because he has no real feel for the car.

A car that "tricks" you and doesn't behave as you expect will just ruin the feel you have for it. Then your brain shuts off your instincts and tries to react "manually" to the "anomaly" instead. The moment you no longer drive on instinct and your "active" brain is involved, you're automatically slower. This is where the problem lies with RedBull and their second drivers. The car must behave in such a peculiar manner, that only Max has the experience (+ talent) to get on top of it. It is highly unlikely this characteristic will change this year. All they can hope now is that they find a second driver that likes and expects similar things from a car as Max does, or that whoever is on that second seat is extremely adaptable and gets on top of the car with a couple of races of experience.