How fast are the Redbulls?

[CHT]

off track politics aside, what is your opinion of RBR race and qualifying pace relative to the rest of the field at Silverstone?

Now that RBR has dominated Barcelona, Monaco, and now Silverstone, I dont see how the rest of the field can catch up with RBR this season.

On a contrary, I think we should thank RBR for making this season "interesting"

[raymondu999]

It's quite interesting. Back in Barcelona the Bulls were miles ahead in qualy, as they were again in Silverstone. In Barcelona however, their race pace seemed decent. That's it. Lewis Hamilton could even jump a Red Bull (Vettel) in the stops. In Turkey, while the quali pace was just "ok," much closer in Q3 than at Barcelona, the race pace of the McLaren was equally as good, or perhaps even better. Then we get to silverstone, and we have Lewis wrestling his McLaren and struggling to match a cruising-ish Webber. Or I thought he was cruising, as it seemed that he could just draw up purple sectors at will.

[Richard]

eh? The team that sat on the front row was "miles off in qualy" ?

Oh, I see you're talking about McLaren. The OP is about RB.

[raymondu999]

Sorry for the confusion, I meant miles ahead. Wrong choice of words. AND I meant the bulls. Edited the post accordingly.

[speedsense]

off track politics aside, what is your opinion of RBR race and qualifying pace relative to the rest of the field at Silverstone?

Now that RBR has dominated Barcelona, Monaco, and now Silverstone, I dont see how the rest of the field can catch up with RBR this season.

On a contrary, I think we should thank RBR for making this season "interesting"

It is Red Bull that needs to catch up to Mclaren, as they lead both the WDC and WCC.
IMHO...

[raymondu999]

I think he means "catch" in terms of pure, outright pace.

[speedsense]

I think he means "catch" in terms of pure, outright pace.

Mclaren is winning the outright championship pace. Kimi had the most "fastest race laps" of the 2008 season, but nobody was worried about keeping up with his pace.
The point is there's no points for "pace", except the pace of collecting points. Ultimately that's the only pace that matters.
Mclaren is worried about the Red Bulls pace, as are the rest of the top teams. Though I would be willing to bet, Red Bull is worried about the points pace, of Mclaren.
F1 history is full of fast cars/teams that seemingly were unbeatable, yet they somehow escaped winning a championship. Probably just as many that had the pace and won the championship.
It just goes to show that road racing, is still, percentage wise, a lot more about the driver's ability over coming the cars ability and succeeding than it is about the car's ability and putting any driver behind the wheel and winning.
IMHO

[PlatinumZealot]

Interesting, sometime I just look at the track diagrams and pick out the high G turns, turns like 3.8 to 5g to determine how much an advantage the redbull will have. These are the tracks where the RedBull's relative pace is highest. You can't even count out the tracks with long straights because the RedBull F-duct is working quite well now. The Same for the low speed turn tracks, The RedBull has very good low speed grip. So I would say the RedBull's pace only just decreases slightly on slow turn, long straight tracks.

[godlameroso]

Where Red Bull is slow compared to Mclaren or Ferrari, is corners that require heavy braking and corners that require you to brake and turn at the same time. Sectors 1 & 3 in Turkey were dominated by Mclaren, the Red Bulls were as much as 4 tenths off, but made it all up in sector 2

In Monaco, sectors 1 & 2 Kubica was running things, Sector 3 starts after the chicane and Webber was going flat through the Swimming pool, no one else could pull this off.

[SoliRossi]

I think he means "catch" in terms of pure, outright pace.

Mclaren is winning the outright championship pace. Kimi had the most "fastest race laps" of the 2008 season, but nobody was worried about keeping up with his pace.
The point is there's no points for "pace", except the pace of collecting points. Ultimately that's the only pace that matters.
Mclaren is worried about the Red Bulls pace, as are the rest of the top teams. Though I would be willing to bet, Red Bull is worried about the points pace, of Mclaren.
F1 history is full of fast cars/teams that seemingly were unbeatable, yet they somehow escaped winning a championship. Probably just as many that had the pace and won the championship.
It just goes to show that road racing, is still, percentage wise, a lot more about the driver's ability over coming the cars ability and succeeding than it is about the car's ability and putting any driver behind the wheel and winning.
IMHO

SpeedSense i think you have missed the point of the OP. The rb6 is the best car, he is talking about the car.

The rb6 seems to have all the strengths of the rb5 and none of its weakness'. the rb6 is brinllaint in slow twisty stuff, it has the best traction and driveability, and it is undisputed in the fast corners. ITs weakness seem to be break and turn it as well as top speed. The f-duct seesm to help this a bit and it appears to be working. In quali they have the Q-map overrun setting and in the race they have just got better. The biggest testemant was how well the car worked in Valencia. This is as far away from what the RB5 would have liked and the RB6 won there. From a car perspective no other team will get close this season. Keep in mind prior than going to Monaco, Canada and Valencia RBR were just hoping to limit their losses at those tracks and the car worked pretty well.

The only chance Macca have is if Horner continues to make foolish management decisions.

[Richard]

Yes, the car is outstanding, but you also need an outstanding team to win championships.

Back to OP - It is interesting that Hamilton said in his post race interviews that he thought he could catch Webber on the early laps. However, Webber was able to pull away from slower corners with much more grip.

The RB has much more downforce and the team seem able to tune it to the track. They are also able to maximise performance in Q3 without compromising their race pace.

What we are seeing is a well balanced design. Its strength is that it is not a one trick pony (unlike the McLaren F duct which only maximises top speed).

[ringo]

The new wing Vettel used addresses the braking on turn in issue, i'd like to believe.
Newey is plugging up any perceived weaknesses.
I saw how that car was chopping through the turns on Vettel's recovery run and it never seemed so nimble before.
The redbull is as fast as 0.4s a lap at every track. Superior grip, balance, low speed exits and now a reasonable top speed; this car cannot be surpassed, it's like an asymptote of a curve.

[BreezyRacer]

They really haven't been put to the test in the last two wins IMO. Yes the McLarens (esp Hamilton) is there behind them. But Webber is a cool customer and really doesn't feel the need to stretch a lead .. he controls the race to win it. And at Silverstone there were hints that he was just funnin' with Hamilton. Things like the pit stop, which Webber was easily able to wait laps later for, and of course maintain .. even stretch his lead on the old tires. I take it that he drives that way because he realizes that it is a fragile thing .. using only as much as he needs.

As for Valencia that damn track is a one lane track and once you're out front it's over.

I think the one time RB was really stretched was Canada and they were pretty much in the hunt there too. But they were still without the Fduct there so that's not such a good sign, looking forward.

[myurr]

They really haven't been put to the test in the last two wins IMO. Yes the McLarens (esp Hamilton) is there behind them. But Webber is a cool customer and really doesn't feel the need to stretch a lead .. he controls the race to win it. And at Silverstone there were hints that he was just funnin' with Hamilton. Things like the pit stop, which Webber was easily able to wait laps later for, and of course maintain .. even stretch his lead on the old tires. I take it that he drives that way because he realizes that it is a fragile thing .. using only as much as he needs.

As for Valencia that damn track is a one lane track and once you're out front it's over.

I think the one time RB was really stretched was Canada and they were pretty much in the hunt there too. But they were still without the Fduct there so that's not such a good sign, looking forward.

I have a theory about the stops and their timing, as from the lap times it looked like both Hamilton and Webber could have carried on on those tyres.

I think McLaren saw the lap times Vettel was doing on the hard tyre and thought that by pitting when they did they could force Webber to cover Hamilton's stop, and that their car may have relatively better pace on the hards. At that stage of the race Vettel did look like he was struggling for pace, between 0.5 and 1 second per lap slower despite being in clear air. Fortunately for Webber this wasn't the case and he was still comfortably faster.

[SoliRossi]

The pit stops were also taked due to risk management. As a saftey car would have stuffed them if they were the only cars not to have pitted. By pitting they basically covered off any saefty car incident.

I think Macca missed an opportunity as well, they should have pitted a bit earlier and hoped to bring Lewis and in turn Mark as he had to respnd to Lewis out behind Jenson. But they probably played the saftey card and though as soon as we can pit and rejoin in second or the lead we will take it. Regardless of how well the tyres are still going.