2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[avantman]

yes, confirmed by TheRace

"Actually there was a set of used softs but they'd done four laps of qualifying and three pre-grid laps and so were no better than the set he'd put on seven laps earlier."

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark ... -imploded/

Thanks for confirming that. I've got only one question left, what are they at rbr doing........

[PierreW]

Max is becoming more error prone. His focus is slipping.

With the way this team is operating this could become a huge issue.

I don't see really an error. He nearly lost the car but that was absolutely on the tyres. The hard tyres were cold and had zero grip, the way he saved the car was impressive.

The fact that he was furious show he is in it and does not accept bad outcomes.

[PierreW]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It’s a dull season, with no wheel to wheel racing, compounded by us having to endure a lacklustre duel between two very boring and plain Macca drivers, who have no real rivalry. Inevitable that anyone who brings excitement or controversy will take the limelight. The season is boring, and both championships are Macca’s. Max is F1 right now, and why every team would sign him, and why RB should do everything they can to keep him

Yes, it's true, only Max is making the season interesting near the top. Yesterday it was all about him with Red Bull agressive strategy.

It's a pity the tyres allocation do not allow for more possibilities of strategy and don't reward agressivity.

[mwillems]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It's one of the very few times I've spoken about the RB situation

I came to talk about why I thought yesterday's actions are significant, but various defeatist opinions say that apparently the car is slow so yesterday doesnt matter, there's no hope, its understandable that Max might drive in to someone because hes unhappy, if he doesnt try then its not import because Max doesnt care... because Max is of course the centre of the universe.

Until hes not.

RB will always be a big team, but let's be frank, the car is not the biggest issue.

This thread seems to have mirrored a little of the RB PR lines if I'm honest.

[avantman]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It’s a dull season, with no wheel to wheel racing, compounded by us having to endure a lacklustre duel between two very boring and plain Macca drivers, who have no real rivalry. Inevitable that anyone who brings excitement or controversy will take the limelight. The season is boring, and both championships are Macca’s. Max is F1 right now, and why every team would sign him, and why RB should do everything they can to keep him

Yeah, exactly. This year he is to F1 what Senna was in '93 basically making a season worth watching. Very similarly looking season that was to this current one. Two drivers in utterly dominant car never racing each other, just driving in circles. Norris took a role of Hill, Piastri is a new Prost. My only wish for this season is: can wet get more wet races please? Because it has been too dry so far. Just to make something we could remember and talk about after.

[organic]

Verstappen admits on social media his move on Russell was driven by frustration and "shouldn't have happened"

[avantman]

It's nice to see that at least he didn't apologize.

[PierreW]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It's one of the very few times I've spoken about the RB situation

I came to talk about why I thought yesterday's actions are significant, but various defeatist opinions say that apparently the car is slow so yesterday doesnt matter, there's no hope, its understandable that Max might drive in to someone because hes unhappy, if he doesnt try then its not import because Max doesnt care... because Max is of course the centre of the universe.

Until hes not.

RB will always be a big team, but let's be frank, the car is not the biggest issue.

This thread seems to have mirrored a little of the RB PR lines if I'm honest.

RB will always be a big team the way Ferrari is. It does not guarantee performance or title chances. And there are even more at risk than Ferrari with their PU adventure.

They seem to be going into a Binotto phase the way they are run. The car isn't fast enough, and has a too narrow window to perform well. And it isn't getting better with the time, it's getting arguably worse.

The failed developement, the failed setup, the failed updates, the failed pit stops, releasing Max car into Antonelli, the missed startegy calls, the hard tyre choice here which was unthinkable even for Ferrari, the circus around the second driver.

Binotto was sacked mainly I think because Ferrari was looking like a joke in the eyes of the public, which can't happen for a luxury race car brand. RB has less pressure for that, but the path is not good.

[organic]

It's nice to see that at least he didn't apologize.

As close to one you will get from Max though.

[Sergej]

[avantman]

I couldn't figure out who's taken Sporting director job from Wheatley this year and here is google's answer:
In 2025, Red Bull Racing does not have a traditional "Sporting Director" role as it did with Jonathan Wheatley. Instead, the responsibilities of the sporting director have been distributed among three individuals: Gianpiero Lambiase (Head of Racing), Steve Knowles (Head of Sporting Regulations) and another person taking on the operational side.

So, it could only be either Lambiase or Knowles who took that decision to order Max let Russell through. And based on Lambiase "my advice" and "these are the rules" remarks, I tend to believe it was him.
It's shocking really. How a casual f1 fan Rosberg could get that all immediately right calling Russell was wrong immediately because he drove into Max forcing him out, but red bull top staff could not having a couple of extra laps at their disposal? That's shocking stuff really. I could not imagine Johnathan ever making such mistake.
They've been making very big, costly or potentially costly operational mistakes or mistakes on strategy almost every race this year. Only Jeddah and Imola were mistake-free race weekends, but those were also very straightforward one stop races.

[Xyz22]

Staying out was probably the best option but they couldn't knew how slow Leclerc was going to be in the last 6 laps lmao.
He would have still finished P4 behind Russell probably.

The 3 stop strategy was a master stroke though. They realized immediately that in terms of deg there was no comparison but the RB21 "peak" performance was actually good so switching t o a 3 stop at least put a bit of pressure on McLaren. RB is still by far the best team on track.

[FittingMechanics]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

[PierreW]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

Why don't they factor in that it would upset him and put him on the brink? They don't know him?

[kurtj]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

Why don't they factor in that it would upset him and put him on the brink? They don't know him?

This is 11th year that Max is racing in F1, how about him growing up and learn to handle these situations better? The people that sit on the pitwall are also human beings, operating under similar pressure to the driver and trying to make the best possible decision given the shortest amount of time available for such decisions. Have some respect for those that make F1 happen, not just for a petulant driver.