Red Bull RB20

[SiLo]

We could also be finally seeing the culmination of the cost cap + their development penalty from 2021 finally coming into effect.

[F1NAC]

We could also be finally seeing the culmination of the cost cap + their development penalty from 2021 finally coming into effect.

It's more like we are seeing the ceiling of their car concept. RB18 was a fresh project, RB19 was an evolution of 18, RB20 is evolution of 19. In an era where good chunk of the parts is now standardised, tech regulations are tight and limited with volume boxes.. There is now less space for them to find something new. I don't thing that cost cap really hurt them? I mean of the top teams they seem to spend less because they are the only ones sticking to the same concept.

Mclaren had to switch, Mercedes had to switch concept plus overhaul complete on suspension. Ferrari switched their concept and start from blank, and now it seems for the final year of regs they will also need to overhaul suspension. I think for them it's time for new ideas. If there is any scope for them.

[Paa]

We could also be finally seeing the culmination of the cost cap + their development penalty from 2021 finally coming into effect.

It's more like we are seeing the ceiling of their car concept. RB18 was a fresh project, RB19 was an evolution of 18, RB20 is evolution of 19. In an era where good chunk of the parts is now standardised, tech regulations are tight and limited with volume boxes.. There is now less space for them to find something new. I don't thing that cost cap really hurt them? I mean of the top teams they seem to spend less because they are the only ones sticking to the same concept.

Mclaren had to switch, Mercedes had to switch concept plus overhaul complete on suspension. Ferrari switched their concept and start from blank, and now it seems for the final year of regs they will also need to overhaul suspension. I think for them it's time for new ideas. If there is any scope for them.

I remember Red Bull saying at the beginning of season that they went with this aggressive concept as it opened new areas for them to develop on. So Red Bull did exactly that, just something was obviously misjudged.

[SiLo]

We could also be finally seeing the culmination of the cost cap + their development penalty from 2021 finally coming into effect.

It's more like we are seeing the ceiling of their car concept. RB18 was a fresh project, RB19 was an evolution of 18, RB20 is evolution of 19. In an era where good chunk of the parts is now standardised, tech regulations are tight and limited with volume boxes.. There is now less space for them to find something new. I don't thing that cost cap really hurt them? I mean of the top teams they seem to spend less because they are the only ones sticking to the same concept.

Mclaren had to switch, Mercedes had to switch concept plus overhaul complete on suspension. Ferrari switched their concept and start from blank, and now it seems for the final year of regs they will also need to overhaul suspension. I think for them it's time for new ideas. If there is any scope for them.

Cost cap just impacts their ability to have multiple development streams going on at once, so yes I would say they could be impacted by that, in the same way Mercedes and maybe Ferrari have done as well where they had some fundamental issues that needed correcting.

[rgava]

Can it be that they took a development path trusting in Max's hability to cope with certain degree of instability that ended up in a dead end?
I remember reading here some coments regarding the difficulties of the second driver at RB and some team member (not shure if it was CH) saying this was making the car faster than the others.
I'm thinking they probably took that development path and the last evolutions just increased the instability (to the point MV cannot cope with it anymore) not reducing lap times.

[Paa]

Can it be that they took a development path trusting in Max's hability to cope with certain degree of instability that ended up in a dead end?
I remember reading here some coments regarding the difficulties of the second driver at RB and some team member (not shure if it was CH) saying this was making the car faster than the others.
I'm thinking they probably took that development path and the last evolutions just increased the instability (to the point MV cannot cope with it anymore) not reducing lap times.

It is very clear that the inbalance is not deliberate, as they don't see it in windtunnel, it came as a surprise.
What Max prefers is a strong front-end, which comes with a high level (but predictable) of oversteer, that he can handle.
As I understand current balance problems are anything but predictable. No driver can cope with that, if they don't know what to expect from the next turn. Also Max mostly complains about strong understeer.

[bananapeel23]

Can it be that they took a development path trusting in Max's hability to cope with certain degree of instability that ended up in a dead end?
I remember reading here some coments regarding the difficulties of the second driver at RB and some team member (not shure if it was CH) saying this was making the car faster than the others.
I'm thinking they probably took that development path and the last evolutions just increased the instability (to the point MV cannot cope with it anymore) not reducing lap times.

This is not instability in the ”Max driving style” way. The RB19 and RB18 were predictable cars. They knew that they would be unstable, just like the RB20, but they also knew how the instability would manifest. The issue with the RB20 is that they don’t know how the instability will manifest, to the point that even Max struggles to predict it and handle it.

Textbook correlation issues.

[yener]

Interesting to hear Max in post-race interviews say the team will NOW—I emphasize the NOW part—have to develop the car.

Could it be that based on the large performance advantage RBR had at the beginning of the year, they miscalculated that they could slow down development on the ‘24 car and focus on the ‘25 car—if not the ‘26 (whatever is allowed)—and so now they have too few things in the development pipeline and have been overtaken in the development race and on track?

This could definitely be the case. Budget allocation (which is primarily done by Horner) could have been wrongly defined from a wrong perception of the seasons start. That will take time and politics to get adjusted.

Definitely not the case. They lost something and its 99% the brake trick as ScarbsF1 mentioned before. It's not that McLaren is faster now, even Ferrari and Mercedes are the better car right now.
Please dont forget teams always said in all previous seasons that a gap of 0.4 tenths is almost impossible to close in a season. McLaren improved over a second compared to RBR.
And offcourse McLaren did a great job, but RBR has lost an advantage over something, thats crystal clear.

[DDopey]

Interesting to hear Max in post-race interviews say the team will NOW—I emphasize the NOW part—have to develop the car.

Could it be that based on the large performance advantage RBR had at the beginning of the year, they miscalculated that they could slow down development on the ‘24 car and focus on the ‘25 car—if not the ‘26 (whatever is allowed)—and so now they have too few things in the development pipeline and have been overtaken in the development race and on track?

This could definitely be the case. Budget allocation (which is primarily done by Horner) could have been wrongly defined from a wrong perception of the seasons start. That will take time and politics to get adjusted.

Definitely not the case. They lost something and its 99% the brake trick as ScarbsF1 mentioned before. It's not that McLaren is faster now, even Ferrari and Mercedes are the better car right now.
Please dont forget teams always said in all previous seasons that a gap of 0.4 tenths is almost impossible to close in a season. McLaren improved over a second compared to RBR.
And offcourse McLaren did a great job, but RBR has lost an advantage over something, thats crystal clear.

The only source that says that is Scarbs/Windsor, there is no other source for that. And besides that, it looks like the most downside is the top speed of the RB20, this has less to do with braking.

[avantman]

Definitely not the case. They lost something and its 99% the brake trick as ScarbsF1 mentioned before. It's not that McLaren is faster now, even Ferrari and Mercedes are the better car right now.

Stop it. Even Kravitz (not someone known for being particularly sympathetic to Max or Red bull, to say the least) said in his notebook, he had multiple talks with different engineers from teams up and down the grid, asking them the same question about red bull potentially using that trick in their rear brakes. None of them told him they believe it was the case, none of them heard anything about it. So, paddock basically knows nothing about this, so tell me, why would Kravitz make that up? Would he want to protect Max image? And if it was really like that, do you really believe, we wouldn't have heard Zak, Toto or Vasseur mentioning that, talking about their suspicious at least once? Only thing we heard was Allison mentioning once, RBR upgrades might potentially be downgrades and it does look he was right on the money. Now Red bull themselves are echoing that.

If there is any truth to that story about asymmetrical rear brake system whatsoever, most likely, one of top teams(probably even Red bull) invented such system, and as Mercedes in 2019(with regards to their DAS) came to the FIA to get an approval it would be deemed legal to introduce in the 2025 or 2026. And the FIA absolutely didn't like the Idea, and on this occasion, unlike 2019, they took a decision to change the rules immediately to close the loophole and prevent anyone else coming up with such system. This is what most like it was all about, and that could be indeed Red bull that came to the FIA to seek an approval, which they refused to give.

Media manipulates the narratives incredibly well these days.

Perception is reality in F1, whether there is truth to the story or not, people will believe things if they are written in enough places.
Joe Saward

[AR3-GP]

I remember Red Bull saying at the beginning of season that they went with this aggressive concept as it opened new areas for them to develop on. So Red Bull did exactly that, just something was obviously misjudged.

W13 style.

[Watto]

Definitely not the case. They lost something and its 99% the brake trick as ScarbsF1 mentioned before. It's not that McLaren is faster now, even Ferrari and Mercedes are the better car right now.

Stop it. Even Kravitz (not someone known for being particularly sympathetic to Max or Red bull, to say the least) said in his notebook, he had multiple talks with different engineers from teams up and down the grid, asking them the same question about red bull potentially using that trick in their rear brakes. None of them told him they believe it was the case, none of them heard anything about it. So, paddock basically knows nothing about this, so tell me, why would Kravitz make that up? Would he want to protect Max image? And if it was really like that, do you really believe, we wouldn't have heard Zak, Toto or Vasseur mentioning that, talking about their suspicious at least once? Only thing we heard was Allison mentioning once, RBR upgrades might potentially be downgrades and it does look he was right on the money. Now Red bull themselves are echoing that.

If there is any truth to that story about asymmetrical rear brake system whatsoever, most likely, one of top teams(probably even Red bull) invented such system, and as Mercedes in 2019(with regards to their DAS) came to the FIA to get an approval it would be deemed legal to introduce in the 2025 or 2026. And the FIA absolutely didn't like the Idea, and on this occasion, unlike 2019, they took a decision to change the rules immediately to close the loophole and prevent anyone else coming up with such system. This is what most like it was all about, and that could be indeed Red bull that came to the FIA to seek an approval, which they refused to give.

Media manipulates the narratives incredibly well these days.

Perception is reality in F1, whether there is truth to the story or not, people will believe things if they are written in enough places.
Joe Saward

James Allison even put a name to his comments too and said the braking thing wasn't it it and they just went down a bad design path and called the upgrades downgrades.

Considering in addition to what you've said of past issues, there is a lot of paddock talk about the McLaren and Merc front wing RBR and Ferrari are openingly talking about it.

Mercedes pressured the FIA to clamp down on win flex in 2021 etc. RBR talking about the hole in McLarens wheel drums etc. Teams will have a lot more inside knowledge as well as the technical know how as to what is possible etc.

[saviour stivala]

Common sense points to what advantage Red Bull lost was taken away from them by the FIA. Something that when 'taken away - not permitted anymore' reverting to the car in its prime configuration without-it, they lost the advantage they held. In short, it points to the advantage they had having been taken away from them by the FIA.

[Henk_v]

I have yet to see an analyses in relative improvement against last year. Is there performance LOST or just advantage lost....

[MYsee]

Common sense points to what advantage Red Bull lost was taken away from them by the FIA. Something that when 'taken away - not permitted anymore' reverting to the car in its prime configuration without-it, they lost the advantage they held. In short, it points to the advantage they had having been taken away from them by the FIA.

Maybe someone can find the below but this doesn't seem to hold.

A few weeks ago, I believe someone did an analysis showing that RedBull's gap in terms of race-pace to the non-McLaren/Mercedes teams was similar to the start of the season. If the FIA took something away, then the gap would have shrunk to the entire field (not just McLaren/Merc).

The answer as to what happened seems more straightforward. The designers got ahead of themselves and thought they were being innovative with the RB20. Once McLaren/Mercedes made a leap, the RB20's limitations were more pronounced as the team couldn't adjust the car, with upgrades and set-up changes, into a window where it was superior to the McLaren/Mercedes on a consistent basis. The upgrades did not solve the initial issues but, even worse, pushed the car into an extremely narrow window to the point of being undriveable.