2023 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[vorticism]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

[AR3-GP]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

At no point has it been suggested RB are doing any of this, except maybe some drivetrain concerns leading them to be conservative with the gear changes.

If a driver is saving tires (like they all are), then that's part of race strategy.

[mendis]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or grip.

At no point has it been suggested RB are doing any of this, except maybe some drivetrain concerns leading them to be conservative with the gear changes.

At best, they are probably lifting and coasting. As they cannot afford to let their pace in the garage with car changes as situations like SC change the racing situations. They use the pace to come through and then lift and coast. Last race, Perez needed all the pace to come through, yet he was stuck at the back of Aston in the end.

[ValeVida46]

There's a difference between saying another car is quick and leaving it at that vs "accusing" them of "sandbagging" which only has negative connotations, as well as suggestions of more regulation's changes needed, and so on.

I think I've made a clear point.

What is accusational about sandbagging?

The assumption that "only" a negative connotation exists is completely flawed.

[vorticism]

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

Could be, although flipping a switch is still easier and more malleable to race strat than suspension setup changes.

Powertrain sandbagging makes sense because the powertrain is easier to penalize. With aero items it would be less clear what changes would need to be made to a regulation. Take the RB18/19 for example; suppose they start showing their 'true' pace for whatever reason (per the hypothesis), what exactly would be regulated against? Specific bodywork geometry? Limited number of Newey-hours per season?

[AR3-GP]

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

Could be, although flipping a switch is still easier and more malleable to race strat than suspension setup changes.

Powertrain sandbagging makes sense because the powertrain is easier to penalize. With aero items it would be less clear what changes would need to be made to a regulation. Take the RB18/19 for example; suppose they start showing their 'true' pace for whatever reason (per the hypothesis), what exactly would be regulated against? Specific bodywork geometry? Limited number of Newey-hours per season?

Well the problem is, the current things that I have in mind as potential regulations changes which would be passable under the "following initiative" are more likely to hurt Mercedes than RB.

RB and F1 are playing a zero sum game.

Increase DRS zones, and RB are even stronger in qualifying and can take new PUs every other race with the DRS power. Decrease DRS zone and no one can overtake a RB.

Scrutinize plank wear and the other teams get nerfed. Raise the floor and the other teams get nerfed.

Remove the front wing endplate detail and the teams taking the biggest piss (Mercedes) get hurt the most.

Rb built the car that couldn't be nerfed.

[taperoo2k]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

At no point has it been suggested RB are doing any of this, except maybe some drivetrain concerns leading them to be conservative with the gear changes.

If a driver is saving tires (like they all are), then that's part of race strategy.

I'd say it's less sandbagging and more about Red Bull maximising it's results through nursing the cars through races to ensure they score points to build a cushion they can fall back on if they need it. They have restrictions on CFD and Wind Tunnel time, so if a team were to catch up or get closer, they might not be able to out develop the other team and might have to push the car harder to stay ahead, which is where reliability might become an issue.

There's little point in Red Bull pushing the cars to the absolute limit this early in a season, when they are comfortably ahead pace wise.

[basti313]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

At no point has it been suggested RB are doing any of this, except maybe some drivetrain concerns leading them to be conservative with the gear changes.

If a driver is saving tires (like they all are), then that's part of race strategy.

I'd say it's less sandbagging and more about Red Bull maximising it's results through nursing the cars through races to ensure they score points to build a cushion they can fall back on if they need it. They have restrictions on CFD and Wind Tunnel time, so if a team were to catch up or get closer, they might not be able to out develop the other team and might have to push the car harder to stay ahead, which is where reliability might become an issue.

There's little point in Red Bull pushing the cars to the absolute limit this early in a season, when they are comfortably ahead pace wise.

Yes absolutely. Engine livetime is a key thing and they surely turn it down once they can. Most probably more than others, but it is also save to say that neither Ham nor Alo were going full pace in the last race.
And one needs to separate race and Q:
As seen in Q, RedBull was completely on the edge with the ERS. Even pushing the car to the gravel. And still not really faster.
In the race Ves was certainly managing, but Per did not have any sandbags to unload...

[AR3-GP]

Sandbagging with an engine would be more realistic vs sandbagging via suspension/bodywork. Or is the claim that Honda now has an engine which can be sandbagged without engine mode changes?

If they are sandbagging their aero/suspension advantage then the sandbagging is reliant upon the drivers to maintain it convincingly; this is a compliment to Max and Sergio, if so. Turning a dial on the steering wheel is comparatively easy.

If a team wanted to "sandbag" and was confident in their performance vs the competition they could raise the ride height a bit or turn down the engine for the weekend. Neither of these depend on the driver "maintaining it convincingly" .He'll just have less downforce or power.

At no point has it been suggested RB are doing any of this, except maybe some drivetrain concerns leading them to be conservative with the gear changes.

If a driver is saving tires (like they all are), then that's part of race strategy.

I'd say it's less sandbagging and more about Red Bull maximising it's results through nursing the cars through races to ensure they score points to build a cushion they can fall back on if they need it. They have restrictions on CFD and Wind Tunnel time, so if a team were to catch up or get closer, they might not be able to out develop the other team and might have to push the car harder to stay ahead, which is where reliability might become an issue.

There's little point in Red Bull pushing the cars to the absolute limit this early in a season, when they are comfortably ahead pace wise.

With the budget cap, the late part of the season is in many ways already decided. Not in terms of knowing what the result will be, but in terms of whatever that result will be, it's been somewhat pre-ordained by the decisions which have been made now. Teams have a fixed amount of money they can spend and most teams spend it all before the summer break and then just focus on the operating budget for showing up to the races, and 2024 development.

RB wouldn't be able to react to another team in the later half of the season even if they had more windtunnel hours. There's no money for new parts.

[Juzh]

I'm like 70% certain RB didn't run full power in melbourne. I'm basing this by looking at a bunch of onboards, telemetries and so on. I've got nothing concrete obviously, just a feeling. It's happened already in bahrain, so it's not completely unheard of. There they turned it down mid-race, here they were turned down already for qualifying.

Almost entire field was driving away from both RBs during initial acceleration. Only at top end they had advantage, but that was coming almost entirely from honda's ERS advantage.

As for perez, he was just slow with no confidence. Forget that fastest lap, it's meaningless. We've seen verstappen was able to dispatch hamilton at will when needed, meanwhile perez needs 15 laps to catch norris, then another few to overtake slowest car on straights.

[Big Tea]

There is of course a difference between 'sand bagging' to hide the true performance and running in such a way as to reduce stress on mechanical parts and tyres.
If the car is capable of doing its job while being more lightly stressed than it could be if run at 'flat out' then it makes sense to do just that knowing there is some cash in the bag if they need to dig deep. I see nothing wrong or underhanded about it, just common sense.

[Farnborough]

Its a formula now made to reward component lifing, of course everyone that can will turn wear items down, if possible, once they've achieved their realistic goals for that race.

No it's not particularly interesting as a spectator, but the game that's currently played within these rules.

[AR3-GP]

Honda have claimed that the target was 8 races per PU. This calendar has 23 races so there isn't much room to spare.

[organic]

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... rs-to-come

Horner on Newey's contract situation:

"We don't talk about contracts or longevity of contracts, but he'll be here for many years to come.

[basti313]

I'm like 70% certain RB didn't run full power in melbourne.

I am 100% certain as no one does.

I'm basing this by looking at a bunch of onboards, telemetries and so on. I've got nothing concrete obviously, just a feeling.

Ah, ok...feeling...from onboards...
You know that they were nursing the tires like crazy? Means...they were not using full traction. No idea how you can judge acceleration...

It's happened already in bahrain, so it's not completely unheard of. There they turned it down mid-race, here they were turned down already for qualifying.

This is why the ERS was so much on the edge that it put Per into the gravel?
First thing you would turn down a bit is the recovery under braking giving both drivers a nasty feel.

Almost entire field was driving away from both RBs during initial acceleration. Only at top end they had advantage, but that was coming almost entirely from honda's ERS advantage.

This is normal, the Honda ICE was always the lowest on torque.

As for perez, he was just slow with no confidence. Forget that fastest lap, it's meaningless. We've seen verstappen was able to dispatch hamilton at will when needed, meanwhile perez needs 15 laps to catch norris, then another few to overtake slowest car on straights.

So the car is dominant and Perez is so bad? I do not really see this.