2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Waz]

Tsunoda 1:10s behind Verstappen after lap 44. Extremely lucky with the SC, otherwise he would've been lapped long before the chequered flag. More than 1,5s a lap slower on average. Compare this with the Mclarens. The ease with which they were overtaking cars, sometimes in the middle of the straights. Yeah, red bull was 'definitely' the fastest car in Imola, right.
(yes, I know tsunoda had old front wing and was in traffic)

Have to agree with this. It really seems overlooked that track conditions and characteristics were always going to favour Red Bull, plus Max is very good at Imola.

It was actually a master stroke by Horner to plan for the update package to be introduced at Imola. Even if it made zero difference, it would still more likely be a good weekend for them. And the Red Bull board appears to know less about F1 than the average fan on Twitter

[Vettel165]

Max is also very good in Barcelona, Austria, Silverstone the upcoming tracks. Bringing that extra tenths as Alonso did at its peak.

[ispano6]

double posted

[avantman]

Tsunoda 1:10s behind Verstappen after lap 44. Extremely lucky with the SC, otherwise he would've been lapped long before the chequered flag. More than 1,5s a lap slower on average. Compare this with the Mclarens. The ease with which they were overtaking cars, sometimes in the middle of the straights. Yeah, red bull was 'definitely' the fastest car in Imola, right.
(yes, I know tsunoda had old front wing and was in traffic)

Have to agree with this. It really seems overlooked that track conditions and characteristics were always going to favour Red Bull, plus Max is very good at Imola.

It was actually a master stroke by Horner to plan for the update package to be introduced at Imola. Even if it made zero difference, it would still more likely be a good weekend for them. And the Red Bull board appears to know less about F1 than the average fan on Twitter

To be fair Imola was just the first race in Europe, hence the plan for first major upgrade.
Judging my last year, Imola was indeed much better track for red bull and Max then, say, average track, or most tracks that came after. Max could open up a bit of a gap and maintain in on the 1st stint last year as well. This year we cannot say anything on how it would be in the end of the 2nd stint, if Lando would be much faster (like last year) or not on hard, due to the SC and forced 2nd stop this year.
Mclaren and Lando had utterly dominant race pace advantage in Barcelona last year, surely that advantage was bigger than in Imola which is much kinder track for the tires.

[organic]

Van Haren said more parts at Barcelona so maybe the first raft of upgrades aren't done yet

[pantherxxx]

Well the fact that the updates are not making the car worse, rather better, is a good sign itself. It means that the correlation with the wind tunnel and cfd is improving compared to last year. I always knew that Red Bull gonna fix their problems, they have a very strong engineering team, even without Newey and Marshall. They didn't forget how to design a winning car.

[CjC]

Van Haren said more parts at Barcelona so maybe the first raft of upgrades aren't done yet

A new front wing?

[Curbstone]

I read so much nonsense from so-called experts and analysts now declaring peremptorily that Red bull was the faster car than the Mclaren in Imola. Those so-called analysts forgot that Max V owned Bottas in Imola already in 2020 having incomparably and undoubtedly slower car. Bottas who was not much slower driver in 2020 than Piastri is now.
On both first two stints it was Mclaren driver who set the faster lap(Norris in the 1st stint, Piastri in the 2nd), despite driving extremely compromised stints, battling with other cars for position, driving in dirty air damaging the tires. So, Max opened up the gap to Piastri who had old tires after the safety car. Then Norris couldn't close that gap after overtaking Piastri, whilst it was clear he never even tried knowing he could do nothing having just few laps left in the race and those analysts say Red bull was the faster car. Nothing, literally nothing suggests red bull was the faster car on Sunday.

Well, in the first stint Piastri wasn't batteling for position, he was trying to hold on to Max. If he had a faster car he would have just sit back and attack in the closing stages op the stint or perform the undercut, similar to Jeddah. However, he lost too much time too early in the stint, so he just wasn't fast enough.
In the second stint, Max was told to bring in the Hard's slowly, and Max suggested to just 'cover' the laptimes of Piasti / Norris. So Max had everything under control, and wasn't pushing (just like Lando).

Perhaps you could say wasn't abundantly clear or it's undecided which car was the faster one, but to say that 'nothing suggest Red Bull was the faster car on Sunday' is rather exaggerated.

[Bill]

when redbull lunched their car it was difficult to spot the difference from their 2024 car and in Australia it was only 2 tenth faster than vcarb in quali .so what people are calling an upgrade is effectively a new car for 2025,it started with change to the internals then new floor and imola new front wing and new body work around the radiators. The drivers reported confidence with respect drivability in case of yuki that confidence brought tears and regrets. He was planning to use 1 set in q1 which show pace improvement. The is a lot of reason why redbull put a lot of stake in these update.Max at one point was 18 second ahead of McLaren that's enough said.

[AR3-GP]

Tsunoda 1:10s behind Verstappen after lap 44. Extremely lucky with the SC, otherwise he would've been lapped long before the chequered flag. More than 1,5s a lap slower on average. Compare this with the Mclarens. The ease with which they were overtaking cars, sometimes in the middle of the straights. Yeah, red bull was 'definitely' the fastest car in Imola, right.
(yes, I know tsunoda had old front wing and was in traffic)

Have to agree with this. It really seems overlooked that track conditions and characteristics were always going to favour Red Bull, plus Max is very good at Imola.

It was actually a master stroke by Horner to plan for the update package to be introduced at Imola. Even if it made zero difference, it would still more likely be a good weekend for them. And the Red Bull board appears to know less about F1 than the average fan on Twitter

Imola is very bumpy. Verstappen asked Norris about his back post-race. There are entry curbs that you need to ride at tamburello and variante alta. Exit curbs are also aggressive and destabilizing. Track temperature was over 40C. Mclaren was the clear fastest car here last year.

There's much more than "it was going to favour Red Bull" (which is not true) in this result. You just have to watch the onboards. The balance of the car is much better than anything we have seen before. Verstappen claimed pole in Suzuka but the balance of the car was terrible on that lap.

[pantherxxx]

Car is even better at curb riding than RB19.

[Sergej]

Van Haren said more parts at Barcelona so maybe the first raft of upgrades aren't done yet

A new front wing?

I think everyone will have a new front wing in Barcelona.

[AR3-GP]

Wache said they have to push harder. Marko said they have teams for 2025 and 2026. Max said they are still looking at the brakes. There's no indication that Red Bull are giving up on 2025. The new sidepods and floor gives a good development direction. Red Bull also can increase the flexibility of the rear wing to reduce drag when the DRS is closed and then perhaps develop more optimized rear wings for the low downforce circuits like Monza and Las Vegas.

In the near future, I think they can really challenge in Barcelona, Austria, Silverstone, and Spa. On the evidence of Imola, they have chances in Zandvoort too (unlike last year).

[basti313]

There's no indication that Red Bull are giving up on 2025.

Yes. I think we see at Merc and Ferrari the (pure) focus on 26. They are now dropping off with every update RedBull and McLaren can bring.

This is also the major issue for Verstappen now. It will be Verstappen and two McLarens on the podium if no one really screws up. The chance of another driver on the podium is dropping significantly.

[KimiRai]

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