2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[avantman]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

[Xyz22]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

It was for Red Bull because the RB 21 had very good "peak" performance, they just couldn't compete in terms of deg over an entire stint (for a 2 stopper strategy). Of course for Ferrari a 3 stop would have been completely useless because they were just slower by a significant margin.

Agreed that a 2 stop strategy would have been safer on paper and especially considering a SC. I still think that a 3 stop was the absolutely right call because it was the only option to put a bit of pressure on Piastri and Norris.

[PierreW]

I did like the agressive strategy, because they tried to do something. of course, being agressive is rarely rewarded due to tyres allocations and safety car ruining races, but it was the only attempt to finish in front of the McLaren and this tactic made the whole race interesting to follow.

The real disastrous choice was the hard tyres, Max nearly crashed the car and was an easy prey, and the second one was asking Max to let Russell pass which made him furious.

[AR3-GP]

That save on the restart was ridiculous.

Everything up until the safety car was beautifully executed. If not for some lapped cars ignoring blue flags, the Mclarens would have had to box even earlier.

[Watto]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

I think their strategy has been hit and miss this year.

I thought the 3 stopper was pretty good as it put pressure on McLaren I don't think they were expecting, Vanja on twitter had the thought too Max probably went a little too hard too early on the 3rd stop and cooked his tyres if he eased them in it may have had enough to put more pressure on Lando at least


The Monaco undercut was extremely tight. A 20~ second loss in the pits, and the biggest the gap got to was 19.7s iirc. Red Bulls pit stops have been a little off this year too. I don't think he was any realistic chance of undercutting Piastri a perfect stop sure. Add Max would've had to use the Soft/C6 after wasting a set of mediums in FP - that was a big blunder. Meant he was at the risk of Oscar pitting early and trying to force Red Bulls hand on pitting too early on the softs.

I think their call to put on the hards was a blunder it left him a sitting duck on the restart, think in the wonders of hindsight it was either stay out or switch to the used set of softs would have been fine for the few racing laps they had left in the end. I get your argument that the 3rd stop left them with a limited options which if fair but I think they probably had more options than they really thought. the softs they used to get to the grid had minimal use at pace I think would have been okay or just stay out and probably settle for 3rd on the tyres he had.

[mwillems]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

It was for Red Bull because the RB 21 had very good "peak" performance, they just couldn't compete in terms of deg over an entire stint (for a 2 stopper strategy). Of course for Ferrari a 3 stop would have been completely useless because they were just slower by a significant margin.

Agreed that a 2 stop strategy would have been safer on paper and especially considering a SC. I still think that a 3 stop was the absolutely right call because it was the only option to put a bit of pressure on Piastri and Norris.

These things go hand in hand, right? All cars have peak performance much greater than in the race, they just have to temper it to try and get the life they need out of the tyres. The performance that RB were pushing yesterday was a bit faster than they could do to run a 2 stop strategy, but the team could do a 2 stop strategy, it's just that they calculated the laptime gain vs stop time was beneficial. It still seems like they see it that way.

[AR3-GP]

I think their strategy has been hit and miss this year.

I thought the 3 stopper was pretty good as it put pressure on McLaren I don't think they were expecting, Vanja on twitter had the thought too Max probably went a little too hard too early on the 3rd stop and cooked his tyres if he eased them in it may have had enough to put more pressure on Lando at least

What pressure from behind is Max going to put on a faster car with older tires?

Red Bull was attempting to undercut the Mclarens. That means you push. The only reason that Max was right behind Lando Norris after Mclaren pitted, was because he was pushing and forced Mclaren to react. Mclaren left it late as late as possible, almost too late. Verstappen's lap while Lando Norris was in the pits was full push and he almost pulled it off. What worth was it to go slower, allow Mclaren to stay out longer, and have Lando Norris in a faster car with an even bigger tire offset and a 3-4 second lead?

[avantman]

I think their strategy has been hit and miss this year.

I thought the 3 stopper was pretty good as it put pressure on McLaren I don't think they were expecting, Vanja on twitter had the thought too Max probably went a little too hard too early on the 3rd stop and cooked his tyres if he eased them in it may have had enough to put more pressure on Lando at least

What pressure from behind is Max going to put on a faster car with older tires?

Red Bull was attempting to undercut the Mclarens. That means you push. The only reason that Max was right behind Lando Norris after Mclaren pitted, was because he was pushing and forced Mclaren to react. Mclaren left it late as late as possible, almost too late. Verstappen's lap while Lando Norris was in the pits was full push and he almost pulled it off. What worth was it to go slower, allow Mclaren to stay out longer, and have Lando Norris in a faster car with an even bigger tire offset and a 3-4 second lead?

Mclaren were not late, it turned out they were allowed to run almost Ideal and fastest 2 stop strategy recommended by Pirelli, and normally they at Pirelli get it right these days.

Mclarens stopped on laps 21-22 and 48-49. As for Max his what was supposed to be three stop strategy was far from ideal, meaning not the fastest three stopper. He basically was lapping faster that he should on 2nd and 3rd stint. That forced them stop early. 2nd, brand new set lasted just 13 laps, third medium set lasted 17 laps and Max stopped 3rd time on lap 47. Wasn't the whole point of 3 stop strategy to create tire offset at any stage, the final stint in this case in order to try and do something against much faster car.

I think it was Max again who made the strategy look far better than it really was, by wasting no time overtaking for position, making very decisive unconventional non-DRS assisted moves. Another driver would've lost at least 5 extra seconds overtaking cars and it would not be looking at that rosy.

[AR3-GP]

Mclaren were not late, it turned out they were allowed to run almost Ideal and fastest 2 stop strategy recommended by Pirelli, and normally they at Pirelli get it right these days.
https://ibb.co/wh2FQKb5
Mclarens stopped on laps 21-22 and 48-49. As for Max his what was supposed to be three stop strategy was far from ideal, meaning not the fastest three stopper. He basically was lapping faster that he should on 2nd and 3rd stint. That forced them stop early. 2nd, brand new set lasted just 13 laps, third medium set lasted 17 laps and Max stopped 3rd time on lap 47. Wasn't the whole point of 3 stop strategy to create tire offset at any stage, the final stint in this case in order to try and do something against much faster car.

I'm not convinced. Verstappen was too close for comfort after the final stop of Lando Norris. Red Bull's best chance was to undercut and try and weaponize the dirty air in the last stint. Lando Norris has troubles overtaking Max when Max decides to defend. It took him 12 laps at the start of the race.

"When we saw Verstappen stopping, we thought it would be a three-stopper - and we thought it's not going to be a problem because we have already overtaken him on track," Stella explained.

"We thought we should have a decent pace advantage. But the reality is that he was fast. He was fast and when we went on the medium tyres in the second stint, we were pushing, controlling the pace and he was catching up very rapidly. More rapidly than we hoped.

"So at some stage we even asked our drivers to push more. And both gave answers like, 'I'm not sure I have much more pace than this'.

"At that stage, we were a little worried that it could have been a more open situation than we thought it would be in the first stint.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/stel ... /10728863/

[avantman]

"So at some stage we even asked our drivers to push more. And both gave answers like, 'I'm not sure I have much more pace than this'.

"At that stage, we were a little worried that it could have been a more open situation than we thought it would be in the first stint.

Stella is a great story teller indeed. But lets look up the data first. It shows at the very end of their 2nd stint (Max 3rd) stint on medium, Piastri had a full second on Max, and Norris who looked very poor surprisingly this time still had 3 tenths on Max when they've been told to push - despite having 7-8 laps older medium.
VER
45 1:20.301
46 1:20.367
47P 1:23.558
PIA
46 1:19.235
47 1:19.630
48 1:19.378
49P 1:23.190
NOR
45 1:20.426 (anomaly poor lap, likely a mistake)
46 1:20.027
47 1:20.082
48P 1:23.999
But does that even really matter? Lets pretend Max came out ahead of Lando (after 4-4.5s pit stop). There is no way he would be able to keep him behind for 19 laps on used soft tire.

[dialtone]

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

What’s the nice part about that?

[AR3-GP]

"So at some stage we even asked our drivers to push more. And both gave answers like, 'I'm not sure I have much more pace than this'.

"At that stage, we were a little worried that it could have been a more open situation than we thought it would be in the first stint.

Stella is a great story teller indeed. But lets look up the data first. It shows at the very end of their 2nd stint (Max 3rd) stint on medium, Piastri had a full second on Max, and Norris who looked very poor surprisingly this time still had 3 tenths on Max when they've been told to push - despite having 7-8 laps older medium.
VER
45 1:20.301
46 1:20.367
47P 1:23.558
PIA
46 1:19.235
47 1:19.630
48 1:19.378
49P 1:23.190
NOR
45 1:20.426 (anomaly poor lap, likely a mistake)
46 1:20.027
47 1:20.082

But does that even really matter? Lets pretend Max came out ahead of Lando (after 4-4.5s pit stop). There is no way he would be able to keep him behind for 19 laps on used soft tire.

On those laps, Max had lapped cars to overtake (who had just pitted into the way with fresher tires) and they were ignoring the blue flags while Max was struggling to close in the dirty air behind them while on older tires. The worst possible situation. The tires were older and he started sliding much more and losing pace trying to pass. So the numbers themselves are not representative.

(RBR also didn't move Tsunoda out of the way fast enough at the end of that stint as he was one of the lapped cars, and then Tsunoda held up Max in T1 right after Max pitted for the final time, further ruining the strategy)

I am not saying Red Bull was on target to win on pace, but they were on target to get some track position and try and hold on before other cars interfered.

[dialtone]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

In the last race alone they fit hards with 10 laps to go on a track where it’s difficult to pass and track position matters, and told their driver to give position back when he didn’t need to.

In the Ferrari team thread you call them names because they take 2 laps to swap drivers.

Are you being serious and balanced with your opinions?

[avantman]

That save on the restart was ridiculous.

Was it really, by the way? Because of the speed or something?

[avantman]

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

What’s the nice part about that?

Because he doesn't have to apologize to Russell, let alone do it publicly on the internet. Nice part is that I would be a bit disappointing if he did.