2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Seanspeed]

We will ger answers by race 9. Horner did mention about two different championships this year. Will be interesting to see. If RB21 can be competitive and win most races in the first 8, that would still make up for an interesting season assuming other cars are also close like last year. Hopefully the difference is Red bull still remains more competitive in the rest of the tracks so wins don't become as rare as they did at some point last year.

I wouldn't be too hopeful listening to Waché's words:

We have made significant changes to the car, but most of them are not visible.The entire cooling system has been modified because it severely limited us in aerodynamic development last year.The entire floor has been revised to enlarge the car's operating window. For this, we responded to the interpretation of the association regarding the flexibility of the front wing.

what I read here, is that they relied A LOT on the flexiwing for the balance of the car, which will be partly gone after 8 races; this would add up with Horner's anger after the clampdown news

we will have to see how the clampdown will affect other cars, even if my gut feeling is that RB21 will be affected the most, and that this year we won't have the few total dominance races to create a buffer like last year.

I’m pretty sure the new rules state that the deflection test in Spain will reduce from 15mm of flex to 10mm so it’s not like they have to have a completely rigid wing again.

5mm is actually a pretty dang significant geometric difference when it comes to shaping airflow, and even more significant because of the front wing's critical importance in being the first thing the air hits and therefore determining where the air goes behind that and how to shape all that bodywork and elements like front suspension behind to optimize things.

The way the FIA have handled this whole flexi wing thing has been absolutely disgraceful. It should have been clamped down on last year when it was so blatantly being pointed out already.

[Sergej]

We will ger answers by race 9. Horner did mention about two different championships this year. Will be interesting to see. If RB21 can be competitive and win most races in the first 8, that would still make up for an interesting season assuming other cars are also close like last year. Hopefully the difference is Red bull still remains more competitive in the rest of the tracks so wins don't become as rare as they did at some point last year.

I wouldn't be too hopeful listening to Waché's words:

We have made significant changes to the car, but most of them are not visible.The entire cooling system has been modified because it severely limited us in aerodynamic development last year.The entire floor has been revised to enlarge the car's operating window. For this, we responded to the interpretation of the association regarding the flexibility of the front wing.

what I read here, is that they relied A LOT on the flexiwing for the balance of the car, which will be partly gone after 8 races; this would add up with Horner's anger after the clampdown news

we will have to see how the clampdown will affect other cars, even if my gut feeling is that RB21 will be affected the most, and that this year we won't have the few total dominance races to create a buffer like last year.

I’m pretty sure the new rules state that the deflection test in Spain will reduce from 15mm of flex to 10mm so it’s not like they have to have a completely rigid wing again.

yes, that's why I wrote "which will be partly gone"

[organic]

Lap 18 should be 35.1 not 31.1

Lawson doesn't have the consistency of Verstappen but his test so far is much better than Perez's of previous years

He's doing a full race simulation at the minute. His times so far:

[Sergej]

first stint is from today morning (interrupted)

it's not a real race sim, they clearly refuelled during stops, like they did last year with Max; anyway, I think it shows a reasonable consistency

[kediown]

New parts confirmed for tomorrow

[Sergej]

Doubt it will a RB18 test upgrade, but good, at least it confirms car is working as expected, let's hope it works this time

[pantherxxx]

Max Verstappen: "It [the predictability of the RB21] improved everywhere compared to last year. I don't want to too much into detail, that's not necessary.. We keep that for ourselves."

"Let's see. I've done half a day, there's a lot to analyse. But it's positive, yeah."

[organic]

Max Verstappen: "It [the predictability of the RB21] improved everywhere compared to last year. I don't want to too much into detail, that's not necessary.. We keep that for ourselves."

"Let's see. I've done half a day, there's a lot to analyse. But it's positive, yeah."

He also mentioned that they've improved characteristics but they just need to add performance. Of course you might still say that if you expect to already be quick, but to me that sounds like a driver who doesn't expect to be winning the first race

[Sergej]

Max Verstappen: "It [the predictability of the RB21] improved everywhere compared to last year. I don't want to too much into detail, that's not necessary.. We keep that for ourselves."

"Let's see. I've done half a day, there's a lot to analyse. But it's positive, yeah."

He also mentioned that they've improved characteristics but they just need to add performance. Of course you might still say that if you expect to already be quick, but to me that sounds like a driver who doesn't expect to be winning the first race

I think that it's very realistic not to expect to win the first race at this point, let's see tomorrow the final day.

[Cs98]

Max's stints yesterday is still the only thing that has matched the pace we've seen from Macca. Today we saw Lando on low fuel in his final stint go down to the mid 32s on a C2, with a fully tuned engine judging by the telemetry. Max was doing 32 high on a C3 with a detuned engine and an unknown fuel load (presumably 30-40kgs).

[pantherxxx]

Helmut Marko was asked about Ferrari

"Ferrari was fast today, but Max hasn't been on the track yet."

[Sergej]

I'm very curious to see what Max can do tomorrow, however I don't think he'll do a full race sim like Lando and Charles today, think he will refuel between stints like last year (and today Liam).

[organic]

I'm very curious to see what Max can do tomorrow, however I don't think he'll do a full race sim like Lando and Charles today, think he will refuel between stints like last year (and today Liam).

Did they definitely refuel between stints today? By my reckoning he didn't go into the garage between his two hard tyre stints.

[Sergej]

I'm very curious to see what Max can do tomorrow, however I don't think he'll do a full race sim like Lando and Charles today, think he will refuel between stints like last year (and today Liam).

Did they definitely refuel between stints today?

I didn't notice if he was pulled inside the box, but looking at the times I would say definitely, too little difference between stints to be on a real sim.

[Cs98]

Liam didn't look great today tbh. The race stints are hard to read because they didn't do them consecutively and probably refueled. With the quali sim he couldn't really nail the first or second sector. Maybe fuel related, but also looked like they were doing a lot of set-up work between runs.