2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Venturiation]

AMuS

Wrong turn in development
Red Bull's problem child is Sergio Perez. The Mexican suffers more than Verstappen from the fact that the Red Bull RB20 has become a mixed bag. Marko states: "At the start of the season, we had a car that was as balanced as the McLaren is now. It could handle all tracks and all conditions. Then we took a wrong turn somewhere. The car has become a buck that only Max can tame."

All development steps came to nothing. "They made the car more and more unpredictable. It became more and more difficult to set it up and balance it," says Marko, looking back. Team boss Christian Horner confirms: "The window in which our car works has become smaller."

At least it still works now and again. Max Verstappen put the Red Bull on pole position in Spielberg with a lead of four tenths and in Spa with six tenths. Marko warns against overestimating the return to former glory. "Those were special qualifying laps from Max. In the race, the superiority was gone. Like Mercedes at the beginning of the year, we are sometimes fast and sometimes slow depending on the conditions. Sometimes even in the same race as in Silverstone, where it rained in between."

From Monza onwards, there will be Recourse to return old qualities

The engineers also realized that they had overstepped the mark here and there in their aggressive development program. What happened to them was what had happened to others. The upgrade was not progress, but at best a side step. Most of the time, reality did not live up to what the wind tunnel promised.

The development of these ground effect cars is a balancing act between good and evil. There is not much room for improvement. Drivability in practice has become more important than downforce records in theory. That's what happened to Mercedes and recently to Ferrari. Only McLaren is consistent, but has also refrained from making major upgrades since the last major renovation of its car.

The Red Bull engineers will react to the whims of the RB20. A development program will be running from Monza onwards, in which old specifications will be used or old parts will be mixed with new ones. This is particularly true in the area of ​​the underbody. Marko: "When the car's reactions are more predictable again, Perez will also find his speed again."

That's why Red Bull didn't replace the Mexican. They realized that their problem child would perform well again when they could trust the car. Just like at the start of the season, when Perez finished on the podium four times in five races. In addition, there is currently no driver in the Red Bull squad who is as fast as Verstappen in every racing car. If the car doesn't change, everyone would have the Perez problem.

seems really that mercedes was the first to max out these regs in 2022 and had to completly downgrade their car and start from scratch, while other started normally and built until the hit the ceiling now

[AR3-GP]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

[Paa]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

This only explains the worsening positions of Perez in qualy/race.
But the gap to his teammate is still inexcusable and the number of accidents are embarrassing to say the least. (Even accounting for the difficult driveability of the car.)
I know Max is really good, but I think there are some drivers around who could be much closer to him. It is easy to shine when you have a rocketship.

[AR3-GP]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

This only explains the worsening positions of Perez in qualy/race.
But the gap to his teammate is still inexcusable and the number of accidents are embarrassing to say the least. (Even accounting for the difficult driveability of the car.)
I know Max is really good, but I think there are some drivers around who could be much closer to him. It is easy to shine when you have a rocketship.

There are drivers that could do better than Perez and be closer to Max in this current unbalanced car. None of those drivers are available for a mid-season swap to Red Bull (Piastri, Norris, Leclerc, Russell, etc).

Red Bull has a long history of internal swaps going pear shaped (except Ver), so I'm not sure about parachuting Tsunoda, Ricciardo, or Lawson, into the car this weekend. The car is difficult and there are still many question marks about their abilities. We've seen how much Ricciardo can struggle. Lawson would be put into an Albon 2.0 situation. I don't really trust Tsunoda to deal with the pressure of a car that is not nice, developing his own racecraft, and trying to defend the WCC as the 2nd driver on such short notice.

Switching drivers mid-season in a championship year is also nuts. I don't know why people were expecting that like it's something that happens every day. Red Bull only ever did that in seasons where they weren't fighting for anything. The most damage control they can do is to fix the car and trust Perez to do his part again. The best time for a change would be at the end of the season.

[Paa]

There are drivers that could do better than Perez and be closer to Max in this current unbalanced car. None of those drivers are available for a mid-season swap to Red Bull (Piastri, Norris, Leclerc, Russell, etc).

Red Bull has a long history of internal swaps going pear shaped (except Ver), so I'm not sure about parachuting Tsunoda, Ricciardo, or Lawson, into the car this weekend. The car is difficult and there are still many question marks about their abilities. We've seen how much Ricciardo can struggle. Lawson would be put into an Albon 2.0 situation. I don't really trust Tsunoda to deal with the pressure of a car that is not nice, developing his own racecraft, and trying to defend the WCC as the 2nd driver on such short notice.

Switching drivers mid-season in a championship year is also nuts. I don't know why people were expecting that like it's something that happens every day. Red Bull only ever did that in seasons where they weren't fighting for anything. The most damage control they can do is to fix the car and trust Perez to do his part again. The best time for a change would be at the end of the season.

Yeah, I agree with you, that it makes sense to keep him right now as no better option is available.
But looking at the wider picture, this could have been managed better as the writing has been on the wall for years that Perez would be exposed with an inferior car. So the real mistake from Red Bull's part is exactly that they have no better option right now. They should have had a solid contingency plan.

(Probably RedBull didn't expect to lose thier advantage so quickly and though they could get away with Perez for 1 or 2 years more. I think they were simply lazy/too comfortable with this one)

[Dunlay]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

Isn't there a lesson for Red Bull fans that were defending the team's earlier statements that the upgrades worked and delivered what they hoped for? Only to be let down with the admission that the upgrades haven't worked. This is two upgrades in a row that didn't work for Red Bull and made the car slower and difficult to drive. We saw this behaviour with Mercedes for 2 years where their fans were defending aggressively every PR statements by the team, despite failing to produce on track performance. It's important to be critical of the teams' statements if the performance doesn't correlates to the words. Technical Forums simply become less valuable if all that fans do is toe the PR lines.

[AR3-GP]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

Isn't there a lesson for Red Bull fans that were defending the team's earlier statements that the upgrades worked and delivered what they hoped for? Only to be let down with the admission that the upgrades haven't worked. This is two upgrades in a row that didn't work for Red Bull and made the car slower and difficult to drive. We saw this behaviour with Mercedes for 2 years where their fans were defending aggressively every PR statements by the team, despite failing to produce on track performance. It's important to be critical of the teams' statements if the performance doesn't correlates to the words. Technical Forums simply become less valuable if all that fans do is toe the PR lines.

Red Bull had 2 full seasons of credibility backing their statements. Mercedes didn't have any so they were more difficult to believe.

Red Bull said they could see the increased aero load in the sensors, but it didn't translate to lap time. This happened to Mercedes at the beginning of the year. This is a new phenomenon in the ground effect era. Teams are now trying to understand how it's possible to measure the increased aero loads, but the car doesn't go faster. I think it could also be a matter of tires, suspension, and balance. It's a very sensitive car.

[AR3-GP]

Formu1a.uno wrote something that was consistent with what I said earlier about the Imola upgrade being a turning point. There are two gaps to consider. The first is the gap from Red Bull to the others which can ebb and flow from track to track, but also the gap between Perez and Verstappen. Anytime that the gap between Ver and Per shifts, then the car has had a measurable change in its balance, for better or worse.

We have recently analysed how there was also a precise moment in which the situation seemed to degenerate, namely with the developments at Imola. To give the level is the gap between Verstappen and Perez, which has widened dramatically since the Emilia Romagna round, with the Mexican having an average of sixth place on the grid for the results achieved so far, in the 2024 season.Something unthinkable if we go back to the first two races, with two Red Bull one-twos, and a Sergio Perez who seemed quite competitive at the beginning of the year, although never at the level of Verstappen. "Max's competitiveness and talent sometimes hide problems, which we only discover later," Waché said recently. Maybe this happened too late? The world champion has said more than once that he had launched his cry of alarm.

https://formu1a.uno/it/mclaren-da-12-ga ... -mondiale/

[MYsee]

It is somewhat pleasing to see that they are admitting to the failure of the development program and that it is not all Sergio Perez's fault. He attracted too much criticism but they never admitted that the updates were making the car worse. This should have come out much sooner. People tried to rewrite too much of history to understand why he was performing so poorly.

If they are confident in how destabilized the car is, then it means that there is logical justification for retaining him and it is not just poor team management. The car needs to be improved first. Verstappen already said to worry about the car before Perez, at least 2 months ago. This seems like a "come full circle" moment.

Isn't there a lesson for Red Bull fans that were defending the team's earlier statements that the upgrades worked and delivered what they hoped for? Only to be let down with the admission that the upgrades haven't worked. This is two upgrades in a row that didn't work for Red Bull and made the car slower and difficult to drive. We saw this behaviour with Mercedes for 2 years where their fans were defending aggressively every PR statements by the team, despite failing to produce on track performance. It's important to be critical of the teams' statements if the performance doesn't correlates to the words. Technical Forums simply become less valuable if all that fans do is toe the PR lines.

Red Bull had 2 full seasons of credibility backing their statements. Mercedes didn't have any so they were more difficult to believe.

Red Bull said they could see the increased aero load in the sensors, but it didn't translate to lap time. This happened to Mercedes at the beginning of the year. This is a new phenomenon in the ground effect era. Teams are now trying to understand how it's possible to measure the increased aero loads, but the car doesn't go faster. I think it could also be a matter of tires, suspension, and balance. It's a very sensitive car.

This is also the camp I'm in. It seems chasing theoretical gains, leading to a narrower window, has not worked. I see no issue going back to some of the older parts and trying to bring the car into a larger window (hoping the changes are a wash).

The remainder of the season should be about bringing Sergio into podium-contention (or as close). He's really the determining factor in whether we defend the WCC.

[AR3-GP]

A vocal group on twitter will be happy with this...

Hugh Bird is set to take a paternity leave absence.

Richard Wood will be working with Checo as his new race engineer for, at least, the following three races, and Richard Cooke will move into the performance engineer role.

[Henk_v]

We need to keep in mind the margins have never been this small. We have seen qualifications in which the top 8 was within 2 tenths. The "disasters" of today are relative. Just a hair off translates into several positions lost. Finding a hair back also gets you to the front quickly.

[AR3-GP]

From Reddit, there was interesting comment from someone who claims to have spoken to a Mercedes mechanic at Goodwood.

I spoke to a guy at Mercedes at Goodwood, he’s one of the race mechanics you see on TV, he said the team are convinced their zero pod design was still the way to go but as Red Bull are facing, it was hard to get it to work as you can’t control how the air flows as well as having traditional pods. He also reiterated that the zero pods had nothing to do with the porpoising problems people still attribute it to.

Edit: should also add that he said the biggest problem with it is once you’ve done it, there’s almost no way to improve it and having sidepods gives you a way to develop the rear and other areas. So once you have them, or at least something like them, you have basically already reached a ceiling for the sidepod area, that then essentially blocks you from improving other parts of the car.

IIRC, McLaren had this exact problem with their U-shaped sidepods in 2011, excellent idea but limited further development potential and ways to improve rear air flow

It's possible that the sidepod concept is also a problem. Ferrari is the only other team who followed Red Bull down the sharkmouth path, but Red Bull also has shrunken their sidepods a lot since 2022. Marko called it Red Bull's take on zero pods. What if that is a part of the problem now. Sidepods help to manage airflow around the floor and to the rear.

[basti313]

We need to keep in mind the margins have never been this small. We have seen qualifications in which the top 8 was within 2 tenths. The "disasters" of today are relative. Just a hair off translates into several positions lost. Finding a hair back also gets you to the front quickly.

Dunno....I would still say that Perez was the most competitive with the 2021 car. Maybe beginning 22 as well. Back then he was always on a 1 to 3 tenth deficit to Max if both had a normal Q without big errors.
So I do not see something better...if Max is now fighting with the McLarens, Ferraris or Mercs about the last 2 tenth...Perez will start behind the best Merc, Ferrari and McLaren. So somewhere in 4th to 5th position at best without being lucky.
That means that he is in the middle of first corner carnage and given how hard it is to overtake at the moment, simply locked in this position.

[Wouter]

For the people who don't have acces to Twitter:

Now that the FIA has CONFIRMED that the cross brake clarification was not based on something any teams were doing, let's look at the race pace changes over the season and see if we can make sense of it all.

To help visualize the changes to the race pace differences over the first half of this season I put together this chart...With context. And context is key here. Thanks to @FDataAnalysis
and his amazing repository of data from his analysis. Be sure to subscribe to his buy me a coffee (in his bio) for access to all the data!

What you see is the race pace delta with Red Bull as the comparative baseline. If the values are positive, then Red Bull had a positive race pace delta to the next closest constructor meaning they were faster. The value bar is the average delta and the image shows who the closest constructor was. If the value is negative, then Red Bull was slower than the fastest (race pace) constructor. The average value is by how much they were slower, and the icon indicates who the fastest constructor was. Let's analyze.

At the start of the season Red Bull was the fastest. They came out of the box with an aggressive winter development, and it seemed to work. The next closest constructor was Ferrari, but they were an average of around 4 tenths/lap off the pace of the Red Bull.

In Miami during the sprint race the Red Bull of MV was the fastest, with Ferrari close behind. The gap was nearly 2 tenths, about equal to Australia (similar tracks). It wasn't until the race when MV damaged the sidewall of his diffuser that the pace fell off, and McLaren found their form. Remember that after a sprint race, McLaren was able to tune their setup for this updated car to maximize the performance. Job done. Even so, Red Bull was only 0.07s/lap off the pace of the McLaren. And as the image shows, this is exactly when McLaren released their biggest update of the year. A big change to the car that resulted in a big performance jump that saw them significantly close the gap to Red Bull. It was also Miami when Mercedes started a raft of updates that would put them on the development path they are bearing fruit from now.

Imola, and Canada were a bit of a mixed bag with MV pulling magic tricks to win those races in the second fastest car. Yes, McLaren was again marginally faster. On average 0.03s/lap difference between McLaren and Red Bull over those 3 races. That's how close the margins had become. Meanwhile Red Bull was struggling with updates that had made the car peaky and difficult to setup. During these races, Mercedes was again plotting their course and finding more and more gains.

Austria and Barcelona saw Red Bull bounce back with more close margins being just 0.045s/lap faster than the McLaren.

It wasn't until Silverstone, Hungary, and SPA that the RB20 really started to fall off the pace (as the graph shows). Over these last 3 races, the average race pace gap to the fastest constructor was nearly 2 tenths per lap! A stark contrast to how the team began the season.

So how did we get here? A sensible discussion please.

1) As the graph shows, the shift in balance of power from Red Bull to McLaren was all on the back of the Miami upgrade. A few problematic updates for the RB20 contributed as well.

2) Mercedes closing the gap has put pressure on Red Bull in single lap pace. This puts the RB20 back in the grid in dirty air, and as we have seen, clean air is king. Not something the RB19 was at all experienced with.

3) Changeable conditions over multiple races made a problematic RB20 even more problematic. What worked for one practice condition didn't work for the changeable race condition. Again, the signs of a peaky car.

4) ATR reductions for Red Bull from 2023 and 2024 would have impacted the later season development of the RB20. Since 2023 was such a dominant season, RBR was able to shift resources to work on the initial RB20 launch spec front loading the whole development process. However, where they would be harmed is on the in season development as this resource front loading wouldn't be possible. This is what we are seeing now. Teams with more ATR doing more in season development, gaining more ground on the P1 constructor.

When the first half of the season is put into context, we now can see how Red Bull has fallen back. The regulations are written to promote such a closing up of the grid via ATR. Red Bull has also contributed to this in their lack of delivery for many of their recent aero updates. Development gains for lower placed teams would be possible with even more aero development time. It really isn't a complex equation. What I can't seem to explain, however, is how Ferrari has found themselves from being the second fastest constructor at the start, to the 4th fastest now. But, there is nothing simple about F1. As @mollym_o
and I have been saying for some time now,

"It's easy to be fast, it's harder to stay fast."

Also about the brakes TD:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/what ... /10645992/

[Vanja #66]

It's always lovely to read an analysis that omits or ignores a few crucial pieces of information that have the capacity to completel change the end conclusion