2023 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Juzh]

Win is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.

Probably just tuned them down a bit, because they saw some potential problems at the end of their life.

I think Juzh refers to qualifying performance. It's very visible on telemetry overlays, both Merc and Ferrari have steeper acceleration curves. Mercedes also suddenly raised their top speed massively, which is a function of both drag and power.

It was during the race as well, Russell was always driving away from verstappen in any range of acceleration. I watched Ver's race onboard in full with telemetry overlays (and with mini sector timings from f1 multiviewer) and it's clear just about every car had more acceleration than RB.
I've seen it now many times, on every track as of late almost. Sometimes it gets masked as RB is the best car and manages to negate some of the loses with better corner exits, but then when straight is a bit longer deficit is seen. In Brazil this was "partly" to blame why perez couldn't overtake alonso.

Win is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.

It has also to be said that Red Bull had a higher downforce rear wing at Las Vegas than both Mercedes and Ferrari; Ferrari had Monza rear wing but coupled with a double components beam wing.
Looking at the speed traces in qualifying, Mercedes (Rus) had worse corner speeds than Ver and Lec, suggesting maybe the lowest downforce config; he had an advantage on the straights vs Ver and same time spent on the straights as Lec (taking Leclerc’s last Q2 run), with Lec gaining in acceleration until around 290 (Albano talked about Ferrari having early ERS release in acceleration for better lap time), then Mercedes coming a bit back after 300, suggesting a different ERS strategy for them (however at that point drag should be the most important factor).
In the race, especially with the tows making the difference along those big straights even at a few seconds of distance, I think it’s harder to compare.

Said that, all in all, I think it was reasonable to expect Max slower on the straights.

Also, even assuming Mercedes had an advantage on Honda here (again, didn’t see it on Ferrari in qualifying), we are at the end of the season, the manufacturers are doing all they can to avoid failures and it’s possible that Honda pushed more in the first two thirds of the season and now Mercedes is able to have a bit more juice than them.
It’s hard to see it black and white at this stage of the season, with old engines.
Looking forward to your reply, as your posts are often very insightful.

Verstappen didnt really have that much downforce on the car (organic, AR3?) and still couldn't do much against russell on straights. Russell had around +5-8 kmh on Ver on long straight, and sometimes +10 on start/finish straight, those are quite significant numbers.
As was mentioned it's possible cold temps really helped merc and ferrari PU on this track, and not so much the honda.

About albano, the guy is good in generating and analysing telemetry graphs, but doesnt know much about technical side of things, or so it seems. The supposed ferrari "early ERS release" doesn't actually exist, and they dont operate their ERS in any special way that's meaningfully different than other engines. Honestly i dont understand where or why people came up with this idea. The reason why ferrari accelerates faster (especially in early 2022) is because they simply had more engine power and were closer to weight limit. Some tiny advantage remained in 2023, but not as much.
What we're seeing from mercedes lately is more worrying in my opinion. They went from absolute trash in early 2022 to now suddenly fastest on some occasions. If they manage to produce a decent car they will be dangerous.

Win is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.

Don't you think Juzh, Mercedes started to push engine harder lately trying desperately to win one race this year? At COTA, Interlagos and clearly in Vegas as well. Doesn't it look similar (to much lesser extent though) to the end of 2021 season? Do you think they have the same power as Mclaren and Aston now? Is it sustainable power they could maintain coming forward, not compromising engine mileage or reliability? They looked like they had big struggles in Mexico race, having to do a lot of lift and coast, a lot more than Honda, Ferrari and even more than Mclaren. Russell struggled with overheating and had to retire ultimately in Brazil. He was by his own words heavily compromised on fuel for half of the race at COTA.

There are all valid considerations, however i'm only talking about horsepower in the end and general trends I'm observing. One race could be an oddity, but now it's been going on for too long to not mean something. In brazil merc team had problems, but mclaren hadn't and was faster again in straights, also alonso pulling away from perez etc etc... Little things that are forming bigger picture. Like russell flying past cars even before DRS zone just earlier today, meanwhile RB needs entire straight to pull alongside..

Anyway, just my thoughts and observations

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen didnt really have that much downforce on the car (organic, AR3?) and still couldn't do much against russell on straights. Russell had around +5-8 kmh on Ver on long straight, and sometimes +10 on start/finish straight, those are quite significant numbers.

Merc and RB had the same rear wings in Monza and Las Vegas:
Merc used a single element beam wing in Monza.

I'm still working on the rest of the details (RB's beam wings). In any case, the Rb are getting slapped in the first half of the straights in Vegas. This was not the case in Monza. It's a bit messy to understand why since there's so much aero configuration, but first parts of the straight are not so aero sensitive.

Also Ver was really suffering in general to pass cars today as quickly as one would expect. The Mclaren, the Alpine, Russell, it took too long.

[AR3-GP]

It also seems like verstappen's deployment was on it's last leg at the end of the qualy lap yesterday:



Maybe Honda didn't have a good tune for the conditions? Maybe they are running detuned for longevity. No idea.

[PierreW]

Verstappen went from 5th in lap 31 to 1st in lap 37. It was decent. Suffering is way too harsh as a word to describe what happened. He overtook Russell almost immediately after Russell stopped to have DRS from the cars he was overtaking himself (Alonso, Sainz).

Top speed in straight was a bit lacking, data don't lie, however Verstappen overtook quite quickly each time he needed.

Overall the safety car came out well for Red Bull, because Leclerc was the favourite to win. Bad call to not swap the places with Leclerc and take the penalty, trying to open a gap on the medium was a bad strategy and it destroyed the tyres too soon.

[DDopey]

Btw where is the praise for Max being to ultimate team player ? I see no mention of that at all, none of the UK media have I seen talking about that ?

[avantman]

Max Verstappen is Novak Djokovic of F1. No matter what happens, he wins. Inevitable and unstoppable. (for those who watch tennis today). Two of the greatest athletes sport has ever seen.

[Sieper]

Verstappen went from 5th in lap 31 to 1st in lap 37. It was decent. Suffering is way too harsh as a word to describe what happened. He overtook Russell almost immediately after Russell stopped to have DRS from the cars he was overtaking himself (Alonso, Sainz).

Top speed in straight was a bit lacking, data don't lie, however Verstappen overtook quite quickly each time he needed.

Overall the safety car came out well for Red Bull, because Leclerc was the favourite to win. Bad call to not swap the places with Leclerc and take the penalty, trying to open a gap on the medium was a bad strategy and it destroyed the tyres too soon.

This. He had to overtake quite some guys who all had DRS. Russell kept “escaping” and then Max had to overtake someone who had drs by Russell.

I am with JUZH that Ferrari especially, but Mercedes too (hadn’t noticed it this much) seems to have more power. Imam even thinking they have some kind of qualy mode again, somehow.

[Juzh]

Verstappen didnt overtake anyone DRS on DRS. Everyone who was overtaken by russell didn't have drs themselves next lap.
meanwhile verstappen had to get creative with russell because of this


from this distance russell was overtaking cars at the drs activation point

[Juzh]

Maybe Honda didn't have a good tune for the conditions? Maybe they are running detuned for longevity. No idea.

In the end only what happens on track matters. If they had to detune to make it trough then that is the performance that is available, no point in ifs and buts... Imagine a tight championship, we'd have a much more concerned conversations. Remember late 2021 merc rocketships.

That comparison with monza is really telling. Something's definitely changed since then.

[PierreW]

Maybe Honda didn't have a good tune for the conditions? Maybe they are running detuned for longevity. No idea.

In the end only what happens on track matters. If they had to detune to make it trough then that is the performance that is available, no point in ifs and buts... Imagine a tight championship, we'd have a much more concerned conversations. Remember late 2021 merc rocketships.

That comparison with monza is really telling. Something's definitely changed since then.

The positive note is that the 0-200 is extremely fast at the moment, with Verstappen taking great starts in the last few races/sprints.

[Juzh]

Maybe Honda didn't have a good tune for the conditions? Maybe they are running detuned for longevity. No idea.

In the end only what happens on track matters. If they had to detune to make it trough then that is the performance that is available, no point in ifs and buts... Imagine a tight championship, we'd have a much more concerned conversations. Remember late 2021 merc rocketships.

That comparison with monza is really telling. Something's definitely changed since then.

The positive note is that the 0-200 is extremely fast at the moment, with Verstappen taking great starts in the last few races/sprints.

Yes, starts have been mega for some time now, he basically annulled all myths about some tracks being worse off pole than P2 or P3. Really good job by the team in this area.

Perez also had very good start today, immediately passed hamilton, alonso and magnussen.

[avantman]

Any chance that Liberty forced, or asked them kindly, to limit power output slightly, in order to help the competition? Because it looks like the FIA has no Idea how could they slow RB down. They tried last year and we saw how it ended. I don't think it's too crazy to assume, because they are all in the same boat effectively, and Horner wants see 'numbers' growing as much as Toto and Vasseur want? Total domination of his team doesn't help commercial side of operation too much. Certainly more people liked what they saw in Vegas compared to say Max massacring the field at Spa and Suzuka, even more people would liked to see Leclerc (or Russell) finally win.
Juzh, when did you first notice the lack of Honda power relative to Ferrari and particularly Mercedes?

[AR3-GP]

That is conspiracy territory

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen went from 5th in lap 31 to 1st in lap 37. It was decent. Suffering is way too harsh as a word to describe what happened. He overtook Russell almost immediately after Russell stopped to have DRS from the cars he was overtaking himself (Alonso, Sainz).

Top speed in straight was a bit lacking, data don't lie, however Verstappen overtook quite quickly each time he needed.

Overall the safety car came out well for Red Bull, because Leclerc was the favourite to win. Bad call to not swap the places with Leclerc and take the penalty, trying to open a gap on the medium was a bad strategy and it destroyed the tyres too soon.

This. He had to overtake quite some guys who all had DRS. Russell kept “escaping” and then Max had to overtake someone who had drs by Russell.

I am with JUZH that Ferrari especially, but Mercedes too (hadn’t noticed it this much) seems to have more power. Imam even thinking they have some kind of qualy mode again, somehow.

There was DRS involved but it was similar in Miami but much easier there.

[AR3-GP]

Thinking about AD now. It should be a great track for this car. A nice medium/ high speed "s" in the first sector should give them some margin and any track with 2 DRS zones is always good for qualifying.