2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[ringo]

Max did not win a race he was not supposed to.

Zandvoort. He couldn't pull away from Lewis. Austin, they won it on strategy not on the average pace. Max said so himself that they shouldnt have won these two races.
In mexico yes Max had clearly the fastest car. The other win was abu dahbi where Mercedes again had the faster car.

So i dont get you. It's quite obvious Merc had the better car from mid season onwards.

All three races you mentioned. The redbull was the faster car. Not sure how you see that differently.
COTA was all redbull dominance. None of those races were mercedes the best car to have.
Newey said it so that should be final. He's smarter than all of us and he knows what the cars are doing.
I mentioned laps lead is the true measure if the dominance of the car. Max has over 650 laps lead. Lewis only 250. For a car to sustain its lead over a race distance without even losing the lead because of pit strategy, it has to be clearly faster than the other rival.
Dominant cars lead with laps. Thats a rule of thumb.
As for best driver of the year.. no comment. If you know you know.

[Edax]

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

I think part of that comes from the advance in manufacturing. I don’t think Verstappen and Perez drive the same car. Or any #1 or #2 driver.

When you make a hundred parts to the same specs they will not be the same. Even if they are all within tolerance some will perform better than others or be better matched to others. The difference is small but multiplied over the thousands of components that make up an F1 car it should lead to a sizable advantage.

With the current available manufacturing aids this kind of cherrypicking has become fairly easy over the past 10 years. You can handpick components from production, based on performance predictors measured in line, assemble them in a digital twin and get a idea of the combined performance, before the parts have even left the dock at the suppliers.

My guess is that if ordinary companies can do this, F1 certainly can. And with the stakes this high I cannot imagine that they are not using this to distribute components over their #1 #2 cars and sister cars.

[ringo]

Max and Perez had the same car.
An F1 car is a prototype. It can have 100% exact same parts in both cars and yet each car can be different because of how much adjustment is in the car. And that is why Perez car was the same and very different at the same time.
The adjustments that are made need the team to support those changes. Perez does not get the same level of support as Max in optimizing his setup for the weekend and this is no secret. He starts with a basic setup tailored to Max and then he has to find his own way with his team, which arent even giving him the same amount of effort because the team is fully focused on Max. So i disagree that the cars are different. But as we can see with Mercedes and their lacj of development, the same car can perform on a whole different level once the engineeers and driver put in the man hours to iteratively optimize it.
I am hoping they give Checo their full support in 2022 to get the most out of his car to have and equal chance of being world champion as Max. There were times throughout the year where checo seemed faster. Very rarely he does, but when he feels good in the car he is as fast as max who may not feel so good on the day. So i think it is possible for him to challenge Max over a race weekend if the team change their policy and invest time and effort into him.
I dont think Checo will stay a third year if has to play second fiddle for 2022.

[JPower]

I dont think Checo will stay a third year if has to play second fiddle for 2022.

For the first time in his career, Checo is on a Tier 1 team that usually builds cars that have an opportunity to win. Given that and the fact that they saved his F1 career, I doubt he's going anywhere else unless Red Bull asks him to leave.

[Ryar]

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

I think part of that comes from the advance in manufacturing. I don’t think Verstappen and Perez drive the same car. Or any #1 or #2 driver.

When you make a hundred parts to the same specs they will not be the same. Even if they are all within tolerance some will perform better than others or be better matched to others. The difference is small but multiplied over the thousands of components that make up an F1 car it should lead to a sizable advantage.

With the current available manufacturing aids this kind of cherrypicking has become fairly easy over the past 10 years. You can handpick components from production, based on performance predictors measured in line, assemble them in a digital twin and get a idea of the combined performance, before the parts have even left the dock at the suppliers.

My guess is that if ordinary companies can do this, F1 certainly can. And with the stakes this high I cannot imagine that they are not using this to distribute components over their #1 #2 cars and sister cars.

You are essentially saying a team is deliberately producing inferior parts for one driver, which is really wayward. On one hand you say, same spec components can have difference and on the other, you say there are equipments to measure performance of such minute difference and use accordingly. This one is a first I have heard.

I think Force India also did this because of which Ocon out qualified Checo in their years together. Maybe that's why Bottas looked that bad in Mercedes.

[Ryar]

Dominant cars lead with laps. Thats a rule of thumb.
As for best driver of the year.. no comment. If you know you know.

True. Dominant cars lead with laps, which they did for 7 long years making a certain someone look great.

[Kingshark]

Oh a comment from his friend who has no clue and was just focusing on his job. How sweet.
The stats says otherwise Ryar.
You can count the race wins yourself. Max did not win a race he was not supposed to.
He has led the most laps and that literally tells you which car was fastest over all the laps in the season. And then the matter on if he won the chamionship on his own is still debated.
athe FIA has put up his 5 best wins of the season. I tend to agree with their selection.
And those wins i think were pretty much par for the course. His best drive for me is Zandvoort because the car was better but it was still a close race.
The rest were all expected wins.
Most dominant wins were in Austria.
Dont think he had any wins driving the "slower" car according to you.

Mercedes was undeniably the fastest car on race pace in France. I also rate it as Max’s best driver this season. He snatched that victory from the jaws of defeat. That outlap was so brilliant that it even caught the Mercedes computer off guard. An undercut from over 3 seconds back? Stunning!

Then of course, for the next 10 laps both Mercedes drivers on hards were hounding him down and clearly quicker, but unable to get past. He truly had no business winning that race.

[seense]

Since Merc had the better car the second half of the season is it fair to say RB didn't bring any updates in the second half of the year and therefore will have a strong car next year?

[Edax]

I think part of that comes from the advance in manufacturing. I don’t think Verstappen and Perez drive the same car. Or any #1 or #2 driver.

When you make a hundred parts to the same specs they will not be the same. Even if they are all within tolerance some will perform better than others or be better matched to others. The difference is small but multiplied over the thousands of components that make up an F1 car it should lead to a sizable advantage.

With the current available manufacturing aids this kind of cherrypicking has become fairly easy over the past 10 years. You can handpick components from production, based on performance predictors measured in line, assemble them in a digital twin and get a idea of the combined performance, before the parts have even left the dock at the suppliers.

My guess is that if ordinary companies can do this, F1 certainly can. And with the stakes this high I cannot imagine that they are not using this to distribute components over their #1 #2 cars and sister cars.

You are essentially saying a team is deliberately producing inferior parts for one driver, which is really wayward. On one hand you say, same spec components can have difference and on the other, you say there are equipments to measure performance of such minute difference and use accordingly. This one is a first I have heard.

I think Force India also did this because of which Ocon out qualified Checo in their years together. Maybe that's why Bottas looked that bad in Mercedes.

It is not deliberately manufactured worse. But rule of the thumb you want to have any measurement at least a factor 10 better than your manufacturing capability in order to be able to monitor and control the process. But that naturally gives you opportunities to select within the spread if you choose to do so.

To give an example. Pirelli mounts and balances the tires. The fact that F1 tires still need to be balanced already shows that manufacturing is not perfect. Apart from sensor weights, you have differences in roundness density etc.

The teams extensively measure these tires and compose them into sets based on how well they match and expected performance. The best overall set is reserved for the Q3 qualifying run. The worst is used up in training.

In this case they are not able to swap sets between drivers but that does not apply to components that are made in house.

Teams go to great lengths to portray themselves as giving drivers equal opportunities and that might be true for some teams and some circumstances. But certainly in the past half year I cannot imagine that RB has not been using every avenue to give Ves an advantage.

[mstar]

Oh a comment from his friend who has no clue and was just focusing on his job. How sweet.
The stats says otherwise Ryar.
You can count the race wins yourself. Max did not win a race he was not supposed to.
He has led the most laps and that literally tells you which car was fastest over all the laps in the season. And then the matter on if he won the chamionship on his own is still debated.
athe FIA has put up his 5 best wins of the season. I tend to agree with their selection.
And those wins i think were pretty much par for the course. His best drive for me is Zandvoort because the car was better but it was still a close race.
The rest were all expected wins.
Most dominant wins were in Austria.
Dont think he had any wins driving the "slower" car according to you.

Mercedes was undeniably the fastest car on race pace in France. I also rate it as Max’s best driver this season. He snatched that victory from the jaws of defeat. That outlap was so brilliant that it even caught the Mercedes computer off guard. An undercut from over 3 seconds back? Stunning!

Then of course, for the next 10 laps both Mercedes drivers on hards were hounding him down and clearly quicker, but unable to get past. He truly had no business winning that race.

Merc wasn't the fastest race car in France. the outlap was scewed by the fact the undercut pitstop was so powerful that race due to the new tyre advantage was so drastic. Also the fact the RB was really good on tyres in that race where merc where struggling with rears.

[Csmith1980]

Since Merc had the better car the second half of the season is it fair to say RB didn't bring any updates in the second half of the year and therefore will have a strong car next year?

RB were still bringing updates in the latter part of the season including a low drag floor in Jeddah

[diffuser]

I think part of that comes from the advance in manufacturing. I don’t think Verstappen and Perez drive the same car. Or any #1 or #2 driver.

When you make a hundred parts to the same specs they will not be the same. Even if they are all within tolerance some will perform better than others or be better matched to others. The difference is small but multiplied over the thousands of components that make up an F1 car it should lead to a sizable advantage.

With the current available manufacturing aids this kind of cherrypicking has become fairly easy over the past 10 years. You can handpick components from production, based on performance predictors measured in line, assemble them in a digital twin and get a idea of the combined performance, before the parts have even left the dock at the suppliers.

My guess is that if ordinary companies can do this, F1 certainly can. And with the stakes this high I cannot imagine that they are not using this to distribute components over their #1 #2 cars and sister cars.

You are essentially saying a team is deliberately producing inferior parts for one driver, which is really wayward. On one hand you say, same spec components can have difference and on the other, you say there are equipments to measure performance of such minute difference and use accordingly. This one is a first I have heard.

I think Force India also did this because of which Ocon out qualified Checo in their years together. Maybe that's why Bottas looked that bad in Mercedes.

It is not deliberately manufactured worse. But rule of the thumb you want to have any measurement at least a factor 10 better than your manufacturing capability in order to be able to monitor and control the process. But that naturally gives you opportunities to select within the spread if you choose to do so.

To give an example. Pirelli mounts and balances the tires. The fact that F1 tires still need to be balanced already shows that manufacturing is not perfect. Apart from sensor weights, you have differences in roundness density etc.

The teams extensively measure these tires and compose them into sets based on how well they match and expected performance. The best overall set is reserved for the Q3 qualifying run. The worst is used up in training.

In this case they are not able to swap sets between drivers but that does not apply to components that are made in house.

Teams go to great lengths to portray themselves as giving drivers equal opportunities and that might be true for some teams and some circumstances. But certainly in the past half year I cannot imagine that RB has not been using every avenue to give Ves an advantage.

You know they don't make parts in large quantities? They'll make 2 front wings of a spec per driver. If he breaks both, he'll go back to a previous spec, until the next race. Generally the first new spec part will go to one driver. The next will go to the other. They reverse the order for the next new spec part.

Probably the most populous of parts are PUs and gearboxes. Even there RBR was running the new gearbox and ATR was running the 2020 or 2019. The PUs with testing and everything, they might go through 10 PUs combined.

[diffuser]

Max Verstappen has the record for most podiums in a season, and most likely would have been a perfect score if it weren't for being taken out by Pirelli and Mercedes! Definitely was a champions drive this year. No one deserved it more and the most popular driver won, so it was a win for F1!

BTW, keep it on topic, praise/defend Mercedes and their drivers in the other team thread.

That just one of those useless facts. Aside from saying Max was consistent, I'm not sure what it says. If you're in the top 2 fastest cars and the gap to the 3ird car is over .5 of a second... all you have to do is beat 1 driver to be on the podium all the time. It says more about the state of F1. I expect each teams car's speed will be closer to the other team now with the new F1 rules and CAP. Records like that, the Hamilton and Schumacher's 7 titles, will never happen again.

[ispano6]

Max Verstappen has the record for most podiums in a season, and most likely would have been a perfect score if it weren't for being taken out by Pirelli and Mercedes! Definitely was a champions drive this year. No one deserved it more and the most popular driver won, so it was a win for F1!

BTW, keep it on topic, praise/defend Mercedes and their drivers in the other team thread.

That just one of those useless facts. Aside from saying Max was consistent, I'm not sure what it says. If you're in the top 2 fastest cars and the gap to the 3ird car is over .5 of a second... all you have to do is beat 1 driver to be on the podium all the time. It says more about the state of F1. I expect each teams car's speed will be closer to the other team now with the new F1 rules and CAP. Records like that, the Hamilton and Schumacher's 7 titles, will never happen again.

I'm talking about the 2021 season and Max's championship, that he earned it with a record breaking performance in what may go down as one of the most epic seasons ever! Don't be so bitter dude.

[Wouter]