2023 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[avantman]

I'm not sure how to explain it, but lap 16 says it all. Out of nowhere, Max just goes 1 second faster than any lap before and, then pits. In this same stint, Max was lapping as fast as the Mclarens while being on much older mediums.

Max never had a single track limit violation. I'm not sure what they were playing at, or what they were managing later on, but Max never complained about the car once and seemed to want to do as little as possible to win the race. If you will recall, GP was angry about Max destroying the front left tire in the sprint race. From there, Max never really bothered in any high speed corner during the GP except for lap 16.

Maybe this is all wrong though and it was really dire straits at the end. It sure didn't sound like it then. Max never complained about the car or exceeded track limits.

oh yeah, Max was just chilling in the car again, as he does all year, that's for sure.
Looks like such guys like Norris and Leclerc were chilling at times as well though. They could go more than a second faster at the ends of their stints too.



would be nice if others were at least trying to push as well.. /s

[AR3-GP]

I'm not sure how to explain it, but lap 16 says it all. Out of nowhere, Max just goes 1 second faster than any lap before and, then pits. In this same stint, Max was lapping as fast as the Mclarens while being on much older mediums.

Max never had a single track limit violation. I'm not sure what they were playing at, or what they were managing later on, but Max never complained about the car once and seemed to want to do as little as possible to win the race. If you will recall, GP was angry about Max destroying the front left tire in the sprint race. From there, Max never really bothered in any high speed corner during the GP except for lap 16.

Maybe this is all wrong though and it was really dire straits at the end. It sure didn't sound like it then. Max never complained about the car or exceeded track limits.

oh yeah, Max was just chilling in the car again, as he does all year, that's for sure.
Looks like such guys like Norris and Leclerc were chilling at times as well though. They could go more than a second faster at the ends of their stints too.
https://ibb.co/rGDBZd6

That's a good spot. We were told that having 3 stops would let everyone drive flat out but this doesn't look to be the case at all.

[avantman]

I've got more, if you like:

[TimW]

It still makes sense to keep the tires in good condition for a possible safety car restart. With the mandated stint lengths the pitstop windows are narrowed down, so you cannot always pit under a safety car without having to do an additional stop. So strategy may have been very different, but you still don't want to end up with dead tires at the wrong moment.

[AR3-GP]

F1 is too competitive currently to be a bad qualifier.

[organic]

I've got more, if you like:
https://ibb.co/FXZhBSB

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

[Alexf1]

I've got more, if you like:
https://ibb.co/FXZhBSB

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

Why wouldn't the team revert Perez car spec and setup back to pre-Barcelona state? He was almost a second a lap faster than the rest of the field in racetrim back then. I'm sure that margin would still make him more competitive than he is now and would give him back the feel he liked.

[avantman]

I've got more, if you like:
https://ibb.co/FXZhBSB

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

Mclarens, both of them have to deal with a lot more traffic, the real one (meaning cars on the same laps, rather than backmarkers they had to lap) and both of them lost a lot more time on traffic than Max, Norris in particular, who was again much faster Mclaren driver. Unfortunately for Mclaren and us fans, that robbed us of potentially great race. It should have been a lot closer than it was at the end, as Piastri can't produce any kind of a challenge for Max.
and yeah, no one of course pushed in the race literally as much as in quali, that is simply impossible, because the tires would be ruined very quickly. There is always certain level of management in the most demanding corners. In quali they need to do an extra slow cool down lap between push laps to keep the temperatures under control, this is the only way to push at 100%. Thermal deg was very low, mostly due to newly laid very low abrasive surface and hard tire compounds, this is why all drivers could set their fastest laps at the very end of their stints.

[organic]

I've got more, if you like:
https://ibb.co/FXZhBSB

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

Why wouldn't the team revert Perez car spec and setup back to pre-Barcelona state? He was almost a second a lap faster than the rest of the field in racetrim back then. I'm sure that margin would still make him more competitive than he is now and would give him back the feel he liked.

I think the issue is driver confidence more than anything else

The type of tracks on the calendar pre-barcelona also heavily favour Perez's strengths and hide his weaknesses. 4 races ago Perez had a good weekend at Monza but the track is start/stop and all about traction zones and rear tyre management - directly playing into Perez's strength.

Also I think max is the sort of driver that will continually find performance throughout the year through setup understanding. He can drive the car in more tricky but faster states than Perez. In Baku particularly he states that he essentially used the race as a test session for setup and learnt a lot about the car and tyres

[Alexf1]

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

Why wouldn't the team revert Perez car spec and setup back to pre-Barcelona state? He was almost a second a lap faster than the rest of the field in racetrim back then. I'm sure that margin would still make him more competitive than he is now and would give him back the feel he liked.

I think the issue is driver confidence more than anything else

The type of tracks on the calendar pre-barcelona also heavily favour Perez's strengths and hide his weaknesses. 4 races ago Perez had a good weekend at Monza but the track is start/stop and all about traction zones and rear tyre management - directly playing into Perez's strength.

Also I think max is the sort of driver that will continually find performance throughout the year through setup understanding. He can drive the car in more tricky but faster states than Perez. In Baku particularly he states that he essentially used the race as a test session for setup and learnt a lot about the car and tyres

Yeah, although next to Baku he did very well in Bahrain and Saudi which have some high speed corners. When a driver is so low in confidence the first thing I'd do is go back to the car state where everything was fine. If he only could get that feel back he would at least have very simple races running second well ahead of the pack. Can't imagine car spec and his setup of that time in which he was almost 1s a lap faster than the other teams would not be fast enough any more to be second.

[organic]

Why wouldn't the team revert Perez car spec and setup back to pre-Barcelona state? He was almost a second a lap faster than the rest of the field in racetrim back then. I'm sure that margin would still make him more competitive than he is now and would give him back the feel he liked.

I think the issue is driver confidence more than anything else

The type of tracks on the calendar pre-barcelona also heavily favour Perez's strengths and hide his weaknesses. 4 races ago Perez had a good weekend at Monza but the track is start/stop and all about traction zones and rear tyre management - directly playing into Perez's strength.

Also I think max is the sort of driver that will continually find performance throughout the year through setup understanding. He can drive the car in more tricky but faster states than Perez. In Baku particularly he states that he essentially used the race as a test session for setup and learnt a lot about the car and tyres

Yeah, although next to Baku he did very well in Bahrain and Saudi which have some high speed corners. When a driver is so low in confidence the first thing I'd do is go back to the car state where everything was fine. If he only could get that feel back he would at least have very simple races running second well ahead of the pack. Can't imagine car spec and his setup of that time in which he was almost 1s a lap faster than the other teams would not be fast enough any more to be second.

For the first rounds only the low downforce front wing was available. At Bahrain they would've wanted to use the higher df front wing but it wasn't brought to the track yet. This probably pulled Max closer to Checo that weekend as couldn't exploit the car's front end to full potential

As for Saudi, max was comfortably ahead all weekend until the driveshaft failure. And then had to use his tyres more than Checo cutting through the field.

I think the setup breakthrough at Baku, max talking about how checo's side of the garage had a better understanding of the tyres at the beginning of the season.. we saw many things resulting in the large swing in performance. Because you are always measuring Checo to max and vice versa, it's hard to unpick what is Checo underperforming and what is Max unlocking extra performance

I think that post-baku was just a confidence thing. Max obliterated Checo at Miami and showed that the title was not possible. He then probably tried running Max's setups for a bit to try to eek out more performance from himself and stay in the fight with Max but it was futile.

[AR3-GP]

I think the issue is driver confidence more than anything else

Watching his onboards, the car did not look tricky to drive.

I think that it's similar to Ricciardo at Mclaren. They may well just be in a state of mind where they can no longer see and feel lap time on the track. They do a lap and say it's feels good, but it's significantly off the pace of their teammate. An inexplicable regression in talent. The street circuits definitely may have flattered things, but missing Q3 by such large margins goes beyond circuit specific weaknesses.

[AR3-GP]

Someone posted this steering wheel comparison on reddit: https://streamin.me/v/20909665

Perez's car does not look unstable, erratic, or like anything in particular.

[Rikhart]

I've got more, if you like:
https://ibb.co/FXZhBSB

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

as Piastri can't produce any kind of a challenge for Max

Are you talking about the Piastri that won the sprint race, ahead of Verstappen? Or some other Piastri?

[AR3-GP]

I think this was just a product of the enforced short stints. The tyres hadn't worn down the gauge much and yet drivers had to box anyway.. so the inlap where they push the rest of the life out of the tyre can be better than usual

But yeah I think things looked closer than reality as the strategy focused around giving max flexibility & protection from SCs.

Also at the end of his Hard stint max ran into a lot of traffic which slowed him down and I believe the McLarens never caught this traffic. He also then had a >4s pitstop which slowed him down further

So things were a bit hidden in reality. But I expect McLaren to be the closest challengers for the rest of the year. If this sort of thing carries on next year the #2 will have to be better in order to secure WCC. It's been easy this year with how frequently the second fastest team has changed

as Piastri can't produce any kind of a challenge for Max

Are you talking about the Piastri that won the sprint race, ahead of Verstappen? Or some other Piastri?

The sprint race only had 9 green flag laps and multiple cool down laps. Piastri had clean air.

In the GP where the stints were longer, Norris was faster by a good 2-3 tenths. Norris also pointed out that the dirty air could be felt from 3 seconds gap which may explain why Verstappen couldn’t really get that close in the Sprint, and also shows how much pace Norris had to close the gap down to 1 second in spite of the dirty air at 3 seconds. Norris is definitely the bigger threat at the moment.