2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Sergej]

Guys,

Just a quick ask as I cannot get it out of my mind - and please forgive me it it was already speculated before. But ...

How much of an influence did have Adrian Newey before or at an racing weekend with his inputs/insights?
I mean, he is surely one of if not the most dominant areo guy of the last ... what, 25 years?
But how much of an input did he make at the weekends?

You know, it bothers me that coincidentally Sergio Perez is having all the troubles since Newey and Red Bull announced their separation (which was end of April/beginnig of May - or somewhere between China and Miami). At that time Horner said something in the line of AD may not be at races in the future, at least not that often any more.

When you look at it, Perez made roughly only 1/3 of the points on top of the ones he achieved in the 6 races before AD/RBR's announcement.
(note, Miami I still counted as being Newey influenced)

Again apologies if it was discussed elsewhere - but how much of an influence did AD have - what is your opinion?

XRay

it's very difficult to estimate this

for what we know the entire development path of RB20 was wrong, and looking at the timing, you would think that Newey worked on it, at least the very first upgrades; on the other hand, rumours are that Waché and Balbo have taken more responsibility since last year and Newey was less involved in the RB20 works, some say that he even disagreed about certain choices made by Waché & Co., but this can very well be BS, who knows

certainly, Newey was not only responsible for initial design, he's an all around technician who helped a lot also in finding right setup (remember in 2021 when he had that bicycle accident which took him away for a while, RB had some setup troubles in the meanwhile), so having a guy like him working actively is certainly better than not having him.

[Paa]

So it was kind of clear that Red Bull's troubles started from Imola upgrade, and many ask why they are so slow to react (3+ months, 8 races and 1 additional upgrade package later).
This is my take.
Horner: he has always been very honest and objective in his evaluation, but he has been under constant fire early this year by Jos and co. Wanting to consolidate his position he slowly shifted toward blindly communicating "all is good" even if things were visibly not. Almost like a Ferrari manager form past decades. (this is what bringing in politics does to management). Performance issues was the last thing he needed wanting to stabilize the team (and himself) so he was very slow to acknowledge.

Waché: he just took it over from Newey (at least in the eye of public and media) so he is now under high attention/pressure how he performs on his own. Obviously a blunder would shade very bad light on him right now so he might not have been keen to accept reality.

So here is the timeline how I imagine. (I intentionally left the Horner saga out, this is only focusing on car development)

Disclaimer: this is full speculation from my part, I don't have any info about inner dynamics at Red Bull. However, this makes perfect sense in my head.

1. Around end of last year: Newey would like to keep current Red Bull philosophy, having lower but highly usable downforce (this is his signature philosophy) - Waché would like to be more aggressive being afraid that others will catch up eventually.
2. Horner backs Waché (probably thinking about long-term future). Newey is sidelined.
3. Early this year: strong gossips about Newey leaving Red Bull - then he resigns few weeks later.
4. Imola upgrade package introduced.
5. Performance issues starting to appear.
6. Red Bull: "All is fine".
7. Max: WTF??!!!!
8. Max to Merc gossips intensify.
9. Hungary GP: Things blow publicly.
10. Serious internal discussion between Max vs Red Bull - they came to a conclusion.
11. Max to Merc gossips cut to zero by both parties (at least for 2025).
12. Red Bull is finally going into crisis management mode.
13. Max is more relaxed.

Conclusion is that unhealthy internal environment might have caused Red Bull a few months delay in reacting as performance issues appeared just about the worst time for Horner/Waché so they probably were inclined to ignore those as long as possible. 1-2 years earlier when team was stable they probably could have reacted in a much more agile way.

[Vanja #66]

I agree. The regulations intended for it to happen. It cheapens the championship but it is what it is. One may note that none of the backmarker teams have slingshotted upwards but the backmarkers are institutionally deficient. They can't be compared to the capacity of the leading teams. If you give teams like Mclaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes extra windtunnel hours over their rivals, they are going to close that gap quickly.

For people who don't think that the windtunnel and CFD time is significant, petition the FIA to give Red Bull more windtunnel time since it "doesn't matter". I doubt there will be any takers on that

Do we not have confirmations from the team itself that one of the biggest issues regarding the car performance and balance is suspension? Overly stiff front end as it happened, a choice that was made based on launch-spec development path they took as a consequence of having incorrect data from the simulator to back it up. I don't recall RB20 being better than MCL38 on Barcelona and Austria curbs, there was no info that this aspect has improved, so I believe this over stiffness is still an issue? I recall reading Newey was against such a stiff front end early in the season, way before Miami.

We've seen how easy teams can make mistakes with floor updates, McLaren didn't touch their tunnels for 10 races already and don't seem to intend to (maybe they tried, but saw it won't work?) while Mercedes again has correlation issues and Ferrari just got out of their correlation troubles and it hurt them a lot. On top of that, everything regarding setup is compromised when you have a car that does not correlate to simulator and aero balance of the floor over a lap is crucial with these cars. Aero dev is not RB20's core problem, these problems are a consequence of slightly compromised suspension design.

As for the gap in Zandvoort, having a floor worth 1-2 tenths and choosing a wing too big (adds too much drag) that also makes you stiffen up the suspension to prevent bouncing is well worth 3 tenths all together I think. Add to that the traction you lose from slow corners (exactly where Norris built the gap in Q3) with too much stiffness you need and we have MCL38 and RB20 mostly equal in ideal conditions for both cars. RB20 just has a lot more trouble reaching those ideal conditions in mixed circuits at the moment.

[pantherxxx]

Verstappen was just 17 seconds ahead of Perez. He usually has a 30-40 seconds advantage. This shows that Red Bull simply gave Verstappen the wrong set-up, hence the huge gap to Norris. I wouldn't be scared if I were Red Bull, if they get the right set-up they could even win in Monza. And the big advantage in the championship will last until the end of the year if they don't screw up too badly.

[CjC]

Verstappen was just 17 seconds ahead of Perez. He usually has a 30-40 seconds advantage. This shows that Red Bull simply gave Verstappen the wrong set-up, hence the huge gap to Norris. I wouldn't be scared if I were Red Bull, if they get the right set-up they could even win in Monza. And the big advantage in the championship will last until the end of the year if they don't screw up too badly.

Food for thought and correct me if I’m wrong.
Perez had the new floor and Verstappen didn’t. Marko said the new floor was worth 0.2 seconds a lap. So give Verstappen 14.5 seconds race time, that gives you the 30 - 40 second gap to Perez but still puts him 8 seconds behind a 53 lap pace managing Lando…

[Sergej]

Zandvoort was impossible to win, even with the right floor, setup, etc...McLaren is just too strong on that type of tracks.

[Paa]

Zandvoort was impossible to win, even with the right floor, setup, etc...McLaren is just too strong on that type of tracks.

I'm not sure.
If Max indeed was 0.2 or so faster it might have been enough to keep track position, like Leclerc did against Piastri.

[chrisc90]

[ispano6]

...

Do we not have confirmations from the team itself that one of the biggest issues regarding the car performance and balance is suspension? Overly stiff front end as it happened, a choice that was made based on launch-spec development path they took as a consequence of having incorrect data from the simulator to back it up. I don't recall RB20 being better than MCL38 on Barcelona and Austria curbs, there was no info that this aspect has improved, so I believe this over stiffness is still an issue? I recall reading Newey was against such a stiff front end early in the season, way before Miami.

...

Exactly, many talk about Newey's involvement in aero, but he had said so many times that he worked on the suspension of the RB18. You can't help but wonder how much of his note taking and feedback on the pitwall was instrumental in understanding the set up of the car with regard to how to run the car as a balanced platform both aero and mechanical.

When The Race interviewed Adrian in early 2022, his answer to the question of how much he actually designed of the RB18 was as follows: “That’s a difficult one to answer. I’m lucky enough to have a really good group of people at Milton Keynes and it’s a very good team. All F1 teams are big engineering teams but in terms of the involvement in meetings, I put my tuppence-worth in but it’s the guys who bat those ideas around and maybe come up with a list and go away and do the work. Specifically, on this car [the RB18] I did the front and rear suspension and a few other bits and pieces.”

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark ... l-f1-cars/

[DDopey]

So the narrative could just as well be that Newey blew it with the RB20 suspension and got pushed back on it. That caused all sorts of friction and he decided to leave. Probably not a popular narrative as we are all obliged to see Newey as the F1 god.

[Alexf1]

So the narrative could just as well be that Newey blew it with the RB20 suspension and got pushed back on it. That caused all sorts of friction and he decided to leave. Probably not a popular narrative as we are all obliged to see Newey as the F1 god.

Making stuff up about who did the suspension of the RB20 and how bad it would be is something quite different than hearing who did the suspension of the RB18 from the horses mouth..

[Vanja #66]

Is there any info/leak on RB bringing a proper Monza/Vegas rear wing this year? Zandvoort showed they need a proper mid-high load wing and with the Top Speed advantage gone, they will need a proper Monza wing too

[TeamKoolGreen]

Peter Windsor really doubled down on the fiddle break rumors on the RB20. He said as much on his weekly hit on the Cameron F1 Youtube channel. He believes it is part of the reason why Perez has been struggling under braking. Especially at Melburne in the wet

[cheeRS]

Peter Windsor really doubled down on the fiddle break rumors on the RB20. He said as much on his weekly hit on the Cameron F1 Youtube channel. He believes it is part of the reason why Perez has been struggling under braking. Especially at Melburne in the wet

Brake. Fiddle brake.

[Sergej]

I see new Monza kerbs are very flat ! this should help RB20, shouldn't it ?