2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[avantman]

I certainly think a lot depends how much red bull recovers in Austin and how much they really understand their issues.

What was essential a 30+ sec lead to Lando without traffic will be a lot to claw back.

Add that Ferrari and Merc might fight for the odd win too . It also perhaps means races where Max may finish 4,5,6 etc.

A lot has to go right for Lando at the same time the gap can quickly come undone too

there is no way red bull could recover their deficit to mclaren in tire deg, because it has been very significant ever since miami, where mclaren brought their B-spec car to the track. red bull can find some quali pace, some race pace, to be in better position to fight against and fend off mercedes and ferrari, but there won't be any fight against mclaren. these cars are in different class and have been for a while, no upgrade will close that gap, its literally impossible. even if max outqualifies lando on every circuit, or jumps ahead of him on the start, lando will do to max what he did in zandvoort. you can overtake quite easily on all circuits left on the calendar. mexico city might be the only exception, and this track is also my biggest hope for max to extend the lead. he has won the '21 championship with his exceptional move on the start in mexico in 2021 effectively. who knows, me might do it again.

[TyreSlip]

I certainly think a lot depends how much red bull recovers in Austin and how much they really understand their issues.

What was essential a 30+ sec lead to Lando without traffic will be a lot to claw back.

Add that Ferrari and Merc might fight for the odd win too . It also perhaps means races where Max may finish 4,5,6 etc.

A lot has to go right for Lando at the same time the gap can quickly come undone too

Lando's car has such a large delta that he should be winning every race with that car, but fortunately he hasn't. Realistically, Max is going to need some help with an improved car in Austin or I don't see this being a close finish in Abu Dhabi.

[Rikhart]

still convinced it won't be "as bad as expected" ?

Well, yes. Aren't you?

[Sergej]

still convinced it won't be "as bad as expected" ?

Well, yes. Aren't you?

I am too now. Pleasently

[MYsee]

This battle doesn't get interesting until Max has a DNF once and could go away if Norris DNF a race.

I really don't get these quotes. It is extremely tight right now, actually Max doesn't win it as things currently are (ie: looking at last 5 race performance average).
We currently hope that there will be a significant and working upgrade to get back into the fight. But it is not a given, we are relying on that assumption.
Then we can re-evaluate after Austin how tight this actually looks to be.

We are all projecting here. You're taking a more pessimistic view of the next races, I'm not. I'm just not as confident in Norris as you may be. Until something happens to drastically change the gap, Lando will have to be nearly perfect from here on out. The story of the season really should be how Norris hasn't made inroads despite having a faster car for 2/3 of the season. If Hamilton or Leclerc were driving that car, I'd be more concerned.

I also wouldn't look at the last 5 races without context. It took until Monza for the team to figure out where their issues were and they seem to be heading in a positive direction in the last two races with patchwork fixes (which seem to put one RB in about second place). In Azerbijan, Max made last-minute changes which messed up his QF and race (he admitted so himself) but we saw a RB (in Perez's hand) look on par with the fastest McLaren/Ferarri. In Belgium Max took a 10-grid penalty and still kept Norris (in a faster car) behind him for most of the race (and most of us think he would have finished 1-2 had he not taken the penalty).

The season is not perfect. The team has a lot to reflect on (i.e., how to incorporate driver feedback, inconsistent pit-stops timings, second driver, development paths etc). I just think by the end, Max likely wins the WDC by 10-20 points (with Norris finishing somewhere between 1-4, and Max between 2-5 for the remaining races).

[trinidefender]

Ah yes, two teams that are supposed to be 100% separate that are working together to influence the championship.

Nobody here can say that behaviour like that is good for the sport. Teams are supposed to be separate and are supposed to act accordingly.

[Rikhart]

I think Max will easily win the championship. Let me explain why. Let's assume Norris scores an average of 18 points per weekend for the rest of the season. That’s only 108 points. Even if Max scores just a little more than half of that—57 points—he will still win the championship. So, unless Norris wins every race and faces no competition, Verstappen will win. This was Red Bull’s weakest track on paper, yet Max still finished 2nd on the podium. After the Austin upgrade, Red Bull could become extremely competitive again and potentially outscore Norris. In Baku, Pérez in the Red Bull had identical race pace to McLaren, even though McLaren had the mini DRS trick, which they won’t have anymore.

This is exactly how I see it. In Singapore of all places, they managed a comfortable P2. Just remember last year Singapore for Red Bull...
Not long ago, Piasti would have easily got Verstappen, but he was actually losing time in last stint. This is all quite encouraging.

[TyreSlip]

Not long ago, Piasti would have easily got Verstappen, but he was actually losing time in last stint. This is all quite encouraging.

Piastri is very inconsistent with race pace. At some tracks, he is close to Norris and others he is 30+ seconds behind his teammate. This isn't going to be a linear path.

[MYsee]

Not long ago, Piasti would have easily got Verstappen, but he was actually losing time in last stint. This is all quite encouraging.

Piastri is very inconsistent with race pace. At some tracks, he is close to Norris and others he is 30+ seconds behind his teammate. This isn't going to be a linear path.

He seemed to be slower than Norris all weekend. It's also easy to forget that it is his second year in F1. Gosh, how I would love to have him as our second driver.

[AR3-GP]

Looking forward to the Marko excuse report, err I mean column…

“If only Max didn’t make a mistake he would have won and everything is fine…”

[MYsee]

The one thing that needs a little more talk about is the team's strategy calls. For some reason, overtaking has not been as easy in races and track position seems to matter more. Despite that, the team seems to be consistently getting undercut. I'm not talking about the Max/Leclerc incident (which was nothing) but Sainz undercutting Perez just isn't getting talked about enough.

[AR3-GP]

The one thing that needs a little more talk about is the team's strategy calls. For some reason, overtaking has not been as easy in races and track position seems to matter more. Despite that, the team seems to be consistently getting undercut. I'm not talking about the Max/Leclerc incident (which was nothing) but Sainz undercutting Perez just isn't getting talked about enough.

Something dark happened to this team. Strategy and pitstops have been midfield quality since Hungary. The change is very pronounced in the data. I will post the DHL standings later.

[avantman]

Not long ago, Piasti would have easily got Verstappen, but he was actually losing time in last stint. This is all quite encouraging.

Piastri is very inconsistent with race pace. At some tracks, he is close to Norris and others he is 30+ seconds behind his teammate. This isn't going to be a linear path.

Piastri is consistently slow.

[Xyz22]

Not long ago, Piasti would have easily got Verstappen, but he was actually losing time in last stint. This is all quite encouraging.

Piastri is very inconsistent with race pace. At some tracks, he is close to Norris and others he is 30+ seconds behind his teammate. This isn't going to be a linear path.

Piastri is consistently slow.

Norris and Piastri should have been pretty much 1-2 in the WDC already

[Paa]

The one thing that needs a little more talk about is the team's strategy calls. For some reason, overtaking has not been as easy in races and track position seems to matter more. Despite that, the team seems to be consistently getting undercut. I'm not talking about the Max/Leclerc incident (which was nothing) but Sainz undercutting Perez just isn't getting talked about enough.

Something dark happened to this team. Strategy and pitstops have been midfield quality since Hungary. The change is very pronounced in the data. I will post the DHL standings later.

I think it was a mistake not to it Perez for fastest lap. I'm not sure if it was really coordinated with Daniel, but even if it was, it was not guaranteed that Ricciardo can take the FL.

Perez was in a perfect situation to do so and I was really surprised to see he did not box on lap60.