2023 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Just_a_fan]

The whole interview with Pierre Waché.

That's akin to Toto's old "we're the underdog" claims back when Merc were the team to beat. No one believed him then and I'd be amazed if anyone believes Wache now.

It really has nothing to do with it does it....

Both situations are "We're not that good, really. No, honest, we're not!" whilst being the team to beat. In Wache's case it's even worse because he's saying "We didn't do a great job and yet we're trashing everyone else, so what are they playing at?" which is really just Red Bull rubbing everyone's nose in their dominance. Most unseemly, really.

[AR3-GP]

That's akin to Toto's old "we're the underdog" claims back when Merc were the team to beat. No one believed him then and I'd be amazed if anyone believes Wache now.

It really has nothing to do with it does it....

Both situations are "We're not that good, really. No, honest, we're not!" whilst being the team to beat. In Wache's case it's even worse because he's saying "We didn't do a great job and yet we're trashing everyone else, so what are they playing at?" which is really just Red Bull rubbing everyone's nose in their dominance. Most unseemly, really.

RB have significantly less WT hours than the others. It set them up for defeat. The RB19 was committed early to being a mild revision of the RB18. Mercedes with more WT hours admitted to going into a blind alley. Ferrari didn't want to admit defeat of their floor by regs changes.

The context is correct. The revised RB18 could only ever be a small improvement and that's what it is. It's the others with more development time who wasted it (Ferrari and Mercedes).

[JordanMugen]

Both situations are "We're not that good, really. No, honest, we're not!" whilst being the team to beat. In Wache's case it's even worse because he's saying "We didn't do a great job and yet we're trashing everyone else, so what are they playing at?" which is really just Red Bull rubbing everyone's nose in their dominance. Most unseemly, really.

Wache is just being humble.

There is always room for improvement!

It's the others with more development time who wasted it (Ferrari and Mercedes).

That's true. The lack of improvement of Ferrari and Mercedes over the 2022-2023 off-season is baffling. It seems that both teams set laptime improvement targets which were far too low, compared to the target of, for example, -3s/lap which Aston Martin both set and achieved.

Red Bull Racing's improvement level was only mid-pack, the 5th-6th most improved over the off-season IIRC, hence Wache seeking to find more performance.

[djos]

Okay now that was a humble brag! Thebmost dominant car in history and he thinks it was a good job not a fantastic one.

But that is the whole "secret" to the RB18-19 cars, they intentionally avoided chasing peak downforce, and instead concentrated on producing useable downforce that works across a wide range of use cases.

As they say in my industry, perfection is the enemy of good.

[langedweil]

I'd say what Toto used to say and what Pierre is saying are two entirely different things.
Toto was playing games that ultimately made him and his team complacent. Pierre basically says they build a good car with a very broad performance spectrum, but maybe they could/should have done a whole lot better, and were really happily surprised MB and Fer didn't step up like others did (Wil, AMR and now MCL).
Stating that is an attitude about as perpendicular (to complancency) as it gets.
I'd say MB and Fer should be as worried as they can be.

[Henri]

We know they've tried to sign Norris multiple times in the past few years, so it's not a surprise that Marko is into the idea. I've got no clue who they'll end up with or what sort of driver they even want at this point. Do they see their advantage over the field continuing? In which case a driver like a Perez/Ricciardo will work for WCC. They have a lot of options given that almost any driver would be up for the drive

With hindsight, the only way we would ever have had Max-Hamilton driver combo is if Max had joined Merc's driver academy prior to accepting Marko's Toro Rosso seat. Imagine those two duking it out in the W11, lapping the field. Box office indeed

Norris should have taken the seat or was he scared of max ?

"Scared of Max"? Why? If he's not fast enough then he's not fast enough but importantly for Norris, he'd need to know that the team would give him equal billing so he could try. However, the team operates a No.1 / No.2 system - they did it with Vettel and they're doing it with Max (just as Marko confirmed). No driver that considers himself good enough to take the title (as no doubt Norris does), would put himself in a team where he knows from day 1 that the team will give his team mate preferential treatment. That's not fear, it's simple common sense.

Redbull did give daniel and max fair treatment.. ric just run away from the max challenge

[Just_a_fan]

Norris should have taken the seat or was he scared of max ?

"Scared of Max"? Why? If he's not fast enough then he's not fast enough but importantly for Norris, he'd need to know that the team would give him equal billing so he could try. However, the team operates a No.1 / No.2 system - they did it with Vettel and they're doing it with Max (just as Marko confirmed). No driver that considers himself good enough to take the title (as no doubt Norris does), would put himself in a team where he knows from day 1 that the team will give his team mate preferential treatment. That's not fear, it's simple common sense.

Redbull did give daniel and max fair treatment.. ric just run away from the max challenge

Ric beat Max 2 out of 3 seasons (or 1 out of 2 complete seasons if one ignores 2016 when Max moved to RB at the Spanish GP) and got pee'd off by the terrible reliability he suffered in the second half of the 2018 season. He also was not happy that he was blamed by the team for the Baku double DNF when Max was culpable too. The relationship with the team broke down and he left.

[AR3-GP]

"Scared of Max"? Why? If he's not fast enough then he's not fast enough but importantly for Norris, he'd need to know that the team would give him equal billing so he could try. However, the team operates a No.1 / No.2 system - they did it with Vettel and they're doing it with Max (just as Marko confirmed). No driver that considers himself good enough to take the title (as no doubt Norris does), would put himself in a team where he knows from day 1 that the team will give his team mate preferential treatment. That's not fear, it's simple common sense.

Redbull did give daniel and max fair treatment.. ric just run away from the max challenge

Ric beat Max 2 out of 3 seasons (or 1 out of 2 complete seasons if one ignores 2016 when Max moved to RB at the Spanish GP) and got pee'd off by the terrible reliability he suffered in the second half of the 2018 season. He also was not happy that he was blamed by the team for the Baku double DNF when Max was culpable too. The relationship with the team broke down and he left.

Race winning seats in F1 are far and few between. You don't leave unless sacked. You say he was pee'd off by the terrible reliability of the Renault PU, but he went to the Renault factory team with the same engine.

Ric ran from a fight. Everything he said otherwise was obfuscation from that fact. He's realized that now and that's why he wants to return to Red Bull.

He was welcomed back to "evil RB" with open arms, and he wants to return to the "evil team".

Let's take your version though. Ricciardo won 2 out of 3 on merit. I'm sure Ricciardo will bury Verstappen when he returns to his rightful throne! RB would be even more dominant than we've ever seen in the history of the sport. *trembles with fear*

[dans79]

He was welcomed back to "evil RB" with open arms, and he wants to return to the "evil team".

A potential seat and paycheck, is better than no seat and no paycheck!

[organic]

He was welcomed back to "evil RB" with open arms, and he wants to return to the "evil team".

A potential seat and paycheck, is better than no seat and no paycheck!

IIRC he was getting paid for 2023 by McLaren regardless (as part of his exit from their seat) and to still be paid the £15m or whatever his ridiculous contract was, he couldn't take a seat somewhere else? So potentially he forfeited paycheck to be driving the AT

[dans79]

he couldn't take a seat somewhere else? So potentially he forfeited paycheck to be driving the AT

I believe AT picked up the remainder of his contract (it's outside of the cap)!

[Just_a_fan]

Redbull did give daniel and max fair treatment.. ric just run away from the max challenge

Ric beat Max 2 out of 3 seasons (or 1 out of 2 complete seasons if one ignores 2016 when Max moved to RB at the Spanish GP) and got pee'd off by the terrible reliability he suffered in the second half of the 2018 season. He also was not happy that he was blamed by the team for the Baku double DNF when Max was culpable too. The relationship with the team broke down and he left.

Race winning seats in F1 are far and few between. You don't leave unless sacked. You say he was pee'd off by the terrible reliability of the Renault PU, but he went to the Renault factory team with the same engine.

Ric ran from a fight. Everything he said otherwise was obfuscation from that fact. He's realized that now and that's why he wants to return to Red Bull.

He was welcomed back to "evil RB" with open arms, and he wants to return to the "evil team".

Let's take your version though. Ricciardo won 2 out of 3 on merit. I'm sure Ricciardo will bury Verstappen when he returns to his rightful throne! RB would be even more dominant than we've ever seen in the history of the sport. *trembles with fear*

A number of the failures weren't the engine. Clutch, transmission, hydraulics, electrical. They're all RBR rather than Renault.

RB are happy to have him back because they think he's not good enough to worry Max, but good enough to get lots of podium finishes to help the team/Max.

[AR3-GP]

Ric beat Max 2 out of 3 seasons (or 1 out of 2 complete seasons if one ignores 2016 when Max moved to RB at the Spanish GP) and got pee'd off by the terrible reliability he suffered in the second half of the 2018 season. He also was not happy that he was blamed by the team for the Baku double DNF when Max was culpable too. The relationship with the team broke down and he left.

Race winning seats in F1 are far and few between. You don't leave unless sacked. You say he was pee'd off by the terrible reliability of the Renault PU, but he went to the Renault factory team with the same engine.

Ric ran from a fight. Everything he said otherwise was obfuscation from that fact. He's realized that now and that's why he wants to return to Red Bull.

He was welcomed back to "evil RB" with open arms, and he wants to return to the "evil team".

Let's take your version though. Ricciardo won 2 out of 3 on merit. I'm sure Ricciardo will bury Verstappen when he returns to his rightful throne! RB would be even more dominant than we've ever seen in the history of the sport. *trembles with fear*

A number of the failures weren't the engine. Clutch, transmission, hydraulics, electrical. They're all RBR rather than Renault.

RB are happy to have him back because they think he's not good enough to worry Max, but good enough to get lots of podium finishes to help the team/Max.

It's not about what RB think. I'd say what you think is more interesting. You said above that Daniel "beat" Max 2-1 in the h2h. I bet Daniel will bury Max like he did a few years ago. So we'll unfortunately have to swallow a few more years of RB dominance. A miserable thought.


and perhaps I'll sign off now

[chrisc90]

Get Danny in the RB seat and he will beat Max comfortably. Should make it interesting having a inter-team battle.

Either that or Max will run rings round Danny...which I think is what would happen.

[Big Tea]

Get Danny in the RB seat and he will beat Max comfortably. Should make it interesting having a inter-team battle.

Either that or Max will run rings round Danny...which I think is what would happen.

Even if Max was not a better race driver than Dan, (which I think most agree he is, but don't sidetrack the thread) he is the incumbent leader and without any management interference or what some here would call sabotage, things will just revolve around Max because of it and that is going to be a big disadvantage to the new driver who ever he is.
I believe a minimum of 2 years to get things balanced, by which time the new regs would be with us.