2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Paa]

Well, let's review how many points and how much disruption Red Bull has cost him:

1) Australia
2) Horner-gate and the internal division
3) Engine penalties (Spa, Brazil)
4) A rubbish car
5) A rubbish teammate

A driver's calm and patience is not endless. You can't simply discuss the few issues of Max without discussing the conditions that he is up against. He's done more than his fair share of carrying this team when they are determined to lose all the titles with this toothless car.

Yeah, I agree so much that I did not even feel the need to mention all of these, clear as sky.
Still Max can only directly affect what is in his control so he needs to focus on that and hope for the rest.
I'm sure a perfectionist like Max would totally understand this.

Just because Verstappen is driving well above all standards and very often overachieves, it should not mean that we can not point out the few mistakes he occasionally makes.

[Watto]

Feels like it will take a lot for Max to lose the WDC. But its still a risk. Car was no where near it today. Will be an interesting race next week in Brazil.

Still almost had to be a Lando win every race (almost) But with the potential of 2 Ferraris, and Oscar between him - could argue fastest laps too maybe but a few 16 point races aand the gap closes very quickly.

The gap hasn't narrowed much since Miami but I think very clearly McLaren have an understanding with Oscar not Lando is the no 1 for the rest of the year.

[AR3-GP]

Feels like it will take a lot for Max to lose the WDC. But its still a risk. Car was no where near it today. Will be an interesting race next week in Brazil.

I've been watching F1 for a long time. Brazil will not be interesting for Red Bull. Red Bull has a fundamental performance deficit to Ferrari and Mclaren and there just aren't updates coming in this part of the season that will make a difference towards that. The remaining 4 GPs will play out exactly like Austin and Mexico. Top 4 qualifying and then spending the entire race looking behind at faster Ferraris and Mclarens until they undercut, overcut or overtake. You can hide a bad car in qualifying but you cannot hide it over a GP distance. This is made worse by very powerful double DRS zones in all of the remaining races.

It's the nature of the car and something like this doesn't get overturned with the limited amount of changes that can be made in this part of the season. The COTA update did not deliver the change of characteristics neccesary to beat Ferrari or Mclaren. Remember 2021. The car never got better despite last minute updates. You just can't make quantum leaps in this part of the season. All the money has been spent already.

[Paa]

Feels like it will take a lot for Max to lose the WDC. But its still a risk. Car was no where near it today. Will be an interesting race next week in Brazil.

I've been watching F1 for a long time. Brazil will not be interesting for Red Bull. Red Bull has a fundamental performance deficit to Ferrari and Mclaren and there just aren't updates coming in this part of the season that will make a difference towards that. The remaining 4 GPs will play out exactly like Austin and Mexico. Top 4 qualifying and then spending the entire race looking behind at faster Ferraris and Mclarens for the entire GP distance. Poor tire degradation and made worse by very powerful DRS tracks in all of the remaining races. It's the nature of the car and something like this doesn't get overturned with the limited amount of changes that can be made in this part of the season. The COTA update did not deliver the change of characteristics neccesary to beat Ferrari or Mclaren. Remember 2021. The car never got better despite last minute updates. You just can't make quantum leaps in this part of the season. All the money has been spent already.

I agree all of these. I even anticipated something like this for the end of the season around summer time.

What is even more worrying that Red Bull don't give any vibes suggesting that they know what is going on and will be able to come back strong for next season. And then the questionable engine comes into picture for 2026.
At this point there is no sign of positive turnaround at the horizont.

[pantherxxx]

Only 124 points left to score (Including all the sprints and fastest lap points) and Verstappen still has a 47 point lead. That's huge.

[Watto]

Feels like it will take a lot for Max to lose the WDC. But its still a risk. Car was no where near it today. Will be an interesting race next week in Brazil.

I've been watching F1 for a long time. Brazil will not be interesting for Red Bull. Red Bull has a fundamental performance deficit to Ferrari and Mclaren and there just aren't updates coming in this part of the season that will make a difference towards that. The remaining 4 GPs will play out exactly like Austin and Mexico. Top 4 qualifying and then spending the entire race looking behind at faster Ferraris and Mclarens until they undercut, overcut or overtake. You can hide a bad car in qualifying but you cannot hide it over a GP distance. This is made worse by very powerful double DRS zones in all of the remaining races.

It's the nature of the car and something like this doesn't get overturned with the limited amount of changes that can be made in this part of the season. The COTA update did not deliver the change of characteristics neccesary to beat Ferrari or Mclaren. Remember 2021. The car never got better despite last minute updates. You just can't make quantum leaps in this part of the season. All the money has been spent already.

I don't expect Max to challenge. More can Lando win if Max is in 5th making up 16-20 points (inc the sprint) can make things interesting. It brings the fight very close all of a sudden.

[Watto]

Feels like it will take a lot for Max to lose the WDC. But its still a risk. Car was no where near it today. Will be an interesting race next week in Brazil.

I've been watching F1 for a long time. Brazil will not be interesting for Red Bull. Red Bull has a fundamental performance deficit to Ferrari and Mclaren and there just aren't updates coming in this part of the season that will make a difference towards that. The remaining 4 GPs will play out exactly like Austin and Mexico. Top 4 qualifying and then spending the entire race looking behind at faster Ferraris and Mclarens for the entire GP distance. Poor tire degradation and made worse by very powerful DRS tracks in all of the remaining races. It's the nature of the car and something like this doesn't get overturned with the limited amount of changes that can be made in this part of the season. The COTA update did not deliver the change of characteristics neccesary to beat Ferrari or Mclaren. Remember 2021. The car never got better despite last minute updates. You just can't make quantum leaps in this part of the season. All the money has been spent already.

I agree all of these. I even anticipated something like this for the end of the season around summer time.

What is even more worrying that Red Bull don't give any vibes suggesting that they know what is going on and will be able to come back strong for next season. And then the questionable engine comes into picture for 2026.
At this point there is no sign of positive turnaround at the horizont.

In a way at the points too I almost wonder if Red Bull are happy to have Perez well behind. I think RBR could do withy a drop to 3rd in the constructors championship and do with the wind tunnel and CFD time.

[Paa]

In a way at the points too I almost wonder if Red Bull are happy to have Perez well behind. I think RBR could do withy a drop to 3rd in the constructors championship and do with the wind tunnel and CFD time.

I'm not sure that CFD time is their main issue at the moment to be honest.
They would need a fundamental understanding. More CFD would help to finetune the great base, which they don't have.

Look at Mercedes. They had more more WT/CFD during like the whole rule set and they come up maybe with the mots upgrades, trying all kinds of direction and their performance is totally random. I see Red Bull in a very similar situation right now.

[AR3-GP]

In a way at the points too I almost wonder if Red Bull are happy to have Perez well behind. I think RBR could do withy a drop to 3rd in the constructors championship and do with the wind tunnel and CFD time.

I'm not sure that CFD time is their main issue at the moment to be honest.
They would need a fundamental understanding. More CFD would help to finetune the great base, which they don't have.

Look at Mercedes. They had more more WT/CFD during like the whole rule set and they come up maybe with the mots upgrades, trying all kinds of direction and their performance is totally random. I see Red Bull in a very similar situation right now.

The extra time doesn't hurt them. That's all that can be said. You would rather have it than not if you are behind.

[Watto]

In a way at the points too I almost wonder if Red Bull are happy to have Perez well behind. I think RBR could do withy a drop to 3rd in the constructors championship and do with the wind tunnel and CFD time.

I'm not sure that CFD time is their main issue at the moment to be honest.
They would need a fundamental understanding. More CFD would help to finetune the great base, which they don't have.

Look at Mercedes. They had more more WT/CFD during like the whole rule set and they come up maybe with the mots upgrades, trying all kinds of direction and their performance is totally random. I see Red Bull in a very similar situation right now.

The extra time doesn't hurt them. That's all that can be said. You would rather have it than not if you are behind.

Yeah. With the misteps I think they would almost want it now.

There was a video the other day taking about how the limited wind tunnel time hurt Mercedes.

[Xyz22]

How is it possible that Max was almost slower than the Mercedes?

Can someone provide an explanation how is it possible to lose so much relative performance within a season? I've never seen this happening before outside some insane cases like Brawn GP 2009 because they ran out of money

[Joel709]

Have to remember also that next year is almost similar to 2020 where everyone is just waiting on a new ruleset.

The only benefit we have is that nobody can start testing designs for the 2026 car till start of January, but I imagine most cars will stay the exact same base with some tweaks. Unfortunately meaning I can’t see red bull having a winning car next year unless they already know some magic solutions.

They likely sacrificed a tad bit of next years car time on this years also to try and make it stable, so we will see.

[AR3-GP]

I agree all of these. I even anticipated something like this for the end of the season around summer time.

What is even more worrying that Red Bull don't give any vibes suggesting that they know what is going on and will be able to come back strong for next season. And then the questionable engine comes into picture for 2026.
At this point there is no sign of positive turnaround at the horizont.

I also think 2025 is going to have issues. 2025 is not a time for fundamental architectural changes. Like we saw from 2020 to 2021, it's only a matter of limited evolution because you need to spend more time on the 2026 cars.

Mclaren and Ferrari are the favorites for 2025. They have a great base car to continue developing. They will evolve their cars like RB18-> RB19. Red Bull's original RB18 concept has been obsoleted. They benefitted from having a car which could be developed to its ceiling the quickest. Mclaren and Ferrari have adapted fundamentally different approaches to generating performance and it took them longer, but their ceiling is higher than that of the original Red Bull concept. They don't rely on infinite stiffness and high speed corners to win a GP. It's a huge effort for Red Bull to change course and they can't afford to do all of that while staying on top of 2026 development.

[AR3-GP]

How is it possible that Max was almost slower than the Mercedes?

Can someone provide an explanation how is it possible to lose so much relative performance within a season? I've never seen this happening before outside some insane cases like Brawn GP 2009 because they ran out of money

When your upgrades don't work, you are yesterday's news. It's that simple. Red Bull's "dominance" was only 1 upgrade away from being eroded. That is how precarious sitting at the top of Formula 1 is.

[Joel709]

How is it possible that Max was almost slower than the Mercedes?

Can someone provide an explanation how is it possible to lose so much relative performance within a season? I've never seen this happening before outside some insane cases like Brawn GP 2009 because they ran out of money

Wrong development path combined with other teams finding more performance. The RB20 at the start of the year was hiding cracks due to rivals not improving loads, until they did and then it was harder to find anything with upgrades for red bull as they were exposing more weaknesses. If you bring the rb20 of Bahrain today it would look a lot worse than what we have now