2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[organic]

No worries.

I agree that "find time" and "find the time" is a very important difference.

We shall see how testing goes.

There were other differences as well compared to the Italian translation that changed the tone overall... I'm not as negative anymore

[KimiRai]

[f1isgood]

I don't see confidence exuding from Max or Christian. Maybe they are hoping it works. Let's hope it works at this point. I guess RB20 took a toll on them and seeing the RB21 that is essentially RB20 must have given flashbacks.

[JordanMugen]

https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-red-b ... ive-title/

Pierre Wache's comments suggest that Red Bull's primary focus for the RB21 is on developments beneath the surface, particularly in areas like the floor, which is crucial for ground effect performance. The visible changes to the sidepods and engine cover are expected to be subtle, almost unnoticeable, reinforcing the idea that most of the upgrades will be in less obvious but highly influential aerodynamic areas.

The cynic would say that without Newey, Red Bull don't have any ideas on what to do (at least in terms of large changes; obviously refining actual problem areas is a different thing) -- this is worrying for the 2026 car if true, but surely is not the case?

E.g., there was the "new" engine cover introduced to the RB20 during last season... Which just involved bringing back the old engine cover!

But we'll see, maybe the real RB21 top side bodywork package is being reserved until later (or isn't finished yet).

[continuum16]

We know that in the past (not for a long time, but still) teams have run the previous car at the start of the next year. Ferrari did this during the Schumi era a lot. But now, we have the TPC regulations that prevent testing of cars less than two years old. Does that mean that cars are no longer allowed to be carried over year-to-year? I mean what constitutes a "car" so to speak? Teams can reuse the same tub year-to-year without issue. So is it that bodywork is not allowed to be carried over? Doubt it, we have seen wings used across multiple years for most teams in this era.

I ask because I have yet to see evidence to conclusively prove that this car dubbed the RB21 is not just a mild update package for the RB20. But is Red Bull not allowed to say "this is the RB20" because it will be classified as illegal TPC? Very strange.

Note: even though I haven't been 100% convinced that this *cannot* be the RB20, I think it would make no sense for Red Bull to actually do this, especially in the last year of regulations and when their previous car clearly did not have the developmental momentum nor year-end competitive advantage that someone would want if they were going to carry the car over year-to-year.

[organic]

We know that in the past (not for a long time, but still) teams have run the previous car at the start of the next year. Ferrari did this during the Schumi era a lot. But now, we have the TPC regulations that prevent testing of cars less than two years old. Does that mean that cars are no longer allowed to be carried over year-to-year? I mean what constitutes a "car" so to speak? Teams can reuse the same tub year-to-year without issue. So is it that bodywork is not allowed to be carried over? Doubt it, we have seen wings used across multiple years for most teams in this era.

I ask because I have yet to see evidence to conclusively prove that this car dubbed the RB21 is not just a mild update package for the RB20. But is Red Bull not allowed to say "this is the RB20" because it will be classified as illegal TPC? Very strange.

Note: even though I haven't been 100% convinced that this *cannot* be the RB20, I think it would make no sense for Red Bull to actually do this, especially in the last year of regulations and when their previous car clearly did not have the developmental momentum nor year-end competitive advantage that someone would want if they were going to carry the car over year-to-year.

In this reg cycle every top team has made a new chassis design each year. The rb21 is almost certainly a new chassis constituting a new designation

Alpine are one such exception for 2025, to save resources presumably.

I've spoken to some about this, and the general conclusion is that red bull have modified end of 2024 spec parts to fit the 2025 chassis for this testing spec car. The floor, suspension and chassis are all new, but the sidepods, engine cover, wings are all old spec.

Components for which correlation is significantly higher such as overbody aero components (sidepods, engine cover) can be left longer in development. The team may do this if they're experiencing rapid gains with development (hopium), or they're struggling to meet performance targets and are willing to risk not testing the launch car for a bit of extra development time (more likely)

That said, red bull's car tomorrow is likely to differ from the one debuted in filming day, so I'm told. But perhaps the differences will not be that interesting - I don't know.

[continuum16]

...

In this reg cycle every top team has made a new chassis design each year. The rb21 is almost certainly a new chassis constituting a new designation

Alpine are one such exception for 2025, to save resources presumably.

I've spoken to some about this, and the general conclusion is that red bull have modified end of 2024 spec parts to fit the 2025 chassis for this testing spec car. The floor, suspension and chassis are all new, but the sidepods, engine cover, wings are all old spec.

Components for which correlation is significantly higher such as overbody aero components (sidepods, engine cover) can be left longer in development. The team may do this if they're experiencing rapid gains with development (hopium), or they're struggling to meet performance targets and are willing to risk not testing the launch car for a bit of extra development time (more likely)

That said, red bull's car tomorrow is likely to differ from the one debuted in filming day, so I'm told. But perhaps the differences will not be that interesting - I don't know.

Thanks; I was talking more hypothetically about TPC with the RB20(1) as an example. As someone who enjoys seeing novelty in the cars I hope you are right that Red Bull will try something different. That being said, I went back and looked at the RB19 thread and it was almost the exact same as this. There was a touch more difference between RB18 and launch RB19 but generally the feelings were "this is it? it doesn't look that different..." and we know how 2023 went so who knows

[organic]

Obbs alluding to more winter changes to come for the rb21. I'm presuming there will be some stuff to see different in both testing and in Australia

[zeroday]

and we know how 2023 went so who knows

tbf, it wasn't so much that the 2023 car was so good as it was every other team was still so bad and it took to half the season for the rest to come to grips that things like suspension was important, only to be fully realized in 2024. Anyone, including Mazpin, could have won the WDC in that 2023 car, as most rightfully believe.

[Sergej]

I have pretty low expectation bar for this year, I fully expect McLaren and Ferrari to be a good step ahead.

Anyway, I think that here Red Bull played cautious/conservative, redesigning parts that were critical last year (floor, suspension) and keeping the same overbody, allowing themself to update this (be it in testing or Melbourne) once verified the rest is correctly correlated, which is not necessarily a bad thing in my view.

[organic]

Car looks pretty snappy to me. Not the predictable easily hooked up car we were promised

As if on cue, a spin

[pantherxxx]

Driver mistake, went on the kerbs too much.

[Cs98]

I think the times compare pretty favourably to last year. Day 1 2024 late in the afternoon session Max set a 31.3 on the C3 tyre. Today Lawson set a 31.5 on the C2, quite early in the morning.

It’s not that warm, but still, pretty windy and the track is green.

[organic]

I think the times compare pretty favourably to last year. Day 1 2024 late in the afternoon session Max set a 31.3 on the C3 tyre. Today Lawson set a 31.5 on the C2, quite early in the morning.

It’s not that warm, but still, pretty windy and the track is green.

Max's best of day 1 morning was a 32.5 last year too. So 1s of improvement is about right imo

[f1isgood]

I think the track is cooler and we should probably not read into these times too much. Any long run data however would be much appreciated, especially to see degradation.