2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Peter Piper]

On the brighter side, if taken with a grain of salt; "This Is Formula 1" on Facebook reporting that RB21 has passed the crash test.

Does anybody know if teams have to do a crash test even nothing is changed on the chassis compared to the previous season?

If there are no changes to the structural parts of chassis, inc the nose cone, then no, they would not need to re-test for the sake of re-testing

Why would you ask? No team would do that.

It’s quite usual for teams to be completing these types of test at this time of year

I'm of an age where I remember teams starting the season with a modified version of their previous chassis, before using the new one once the circus came back to Europe. Of course that was in the days of unlimited testing, so teams like Ferrari were pounding round their test track perfecting it before they put it into action. With reliability a million times better than it was in the those days I can't see any big upside of repeating that strategy today, although it's an interesting idea to re-appraise.

[Henk_v]

Well, 2025 is a special year with the new regs. Teams will take any opportunity to divert resources.
The big development over the last eeasons has been suspention geometry and cooling (SIS location). Both may be mature enough to not need change, or at least be workable.

[JordanMugen]

Well, Honda/HRC/Watanabe were/still are not amused at all when they got the news from Horner Yuki didn't get the seat from Checo.

I know and agree, but Red Bull Racing are probably even more unamused that Honda left F1, Red Bull decisively set up an engine factory to do their own engines but then Honda came back to F1 with a rival constructor!

It is what is, both sides will see it out. Red Bull will follow through their commitments to provide cars for the Honda heritage collection and provide their drivers for Honda PR. Honda will provide the best power units they can.

This era will still be fond times in the history of both Red Bull Racing and Honda IMHO.

Notably Liam Lawson has already been doing PR for Ford, like driving the Red Bull Ford Electric Super Van. Maybe that is part of it too, not just that Yuki is a Honda driver and Red Bull are unhappy with Honda, but also there might be issues around Tsunoda doing Red Bull PR for Ford in 2025?

[Yes I know many have pointed out that Honda are happy to release Tsunoda, and stop sponsoring Tsunoda, if that will help Tsunoda's F1 career.]

I was also "upset" AND would have preferred Tsunoda drive the Red Bull, Tsunoda is a likeable and consistent driver (he was on for a good result in Sao Paulo having qualified third and run in third, but it didn't work out with typical terrible VCARB strategy), but fans have to accept that Red Bull driver selection is about more than performance but also marketing (RBR increasingly focussed on Ford), politics and even the factions.

I'm not totally sold on the argument that Lawson has a lot more potential to improve than Tsunoda. Bearman also was very close or slightly ahead to Hulkenberg for instance, in some ways the limit is just the limit -- there is no suggestion Sauber made a mistake choosing Hulkenberg.

Sadly, Red Bull almost certainly already decided long ago they will drop Tsunoda from either team in 2026 when Honda leaves, so training Tsunoda at Red Bull in the 2025 season for another team to benefit later doesn't interest them either I guess.

Certainly taking the 1-year option when Tsunoda had 2-year offers elsewhere was not that most helpful (rude even?), but oh well they are looking out for the interest of (ironically) keeping Racing Bulls best points scorer and stopping a rival midfield team benefiting from Tsunoda...

[Wouter]

Well, Honda/HRC/Watanabe were/still are not amused at all when they got the news from Horner Yuki didn't get the seat from Checo.

.
I know and agree, but Red Bull Racing are probably even more unamused that Honda left F1, Red Bull decisively set up an engine factory to do their own engines but then Honda came back to F1 with a rival constructor!

It is what is, both sides will see it out. Red Bull will follow through their commitments to provide cars for the Honda heritage collection and provide their drivers for Honda PR. Honda will provide the best power units they can.

This era will still be fond times in the history of both Red Bull Racing and Honda IMHO.

Notably Liam Lawson has already been doing PR for Ford, like driving the Red Bull Ford Electric Super Van. Maybe that is part of it too, not just that Yuki is a Honda driver and Red Bull are unhappy with Honda, but also there might be issues around Tsunoda doing Red Bull PR for Ford in 2025?

[Yes I know many have pointed out that Honda are happy to release Tsunoda, and stop sponsoring Tsunoda, if that will help Tsunoda's F1 career.]

I was also "upset" AND would have preferred Tsunoda drive the Red Bull, Tsunoda is a likeable and consistent driver (he was on for a good result in Sao Paulo having qualified third and run in third, but it didn't work out with typical terrible VCARB strategy), but fans have to accept that Red Bull driver selection is about more than performance but also marketing (RBR increasingly focussed on Ford), politics and even the factions.

I'm not totally sold on the argument that Lawson has a lot more potential to improve than Tsunoda. Bearman also was very close or slightly ahead to Hulkenberg for instance, in some ways the limit is just the limit -- there is no suggestion Sauber made a mistake choosing Hulkenberg.

Sadly, Red Bull almost certainly already decided long ago they will drop Tsunoda from either team in 2026 when Honda leaves, so training Tsunoda at Red Bull in the 2025 season for another team to benefit later doesn't interest them either I guess.

Certainly taking the 1-year option when Tsunoda had 2-year offers elsewhere was not that most helpful (rude even?), but oh well they are looking out for the interest of (ironically) keeping Racing Bulls best points scorer and stopping a rival midfield team benefiting from Tsunoda...

.
Well said! Good explanation @JordanMugen!

[ME4ME]

Sadly, Red Bull almost certainly already decided long ago they will drop Tsunoda from either team in 2026 when Honda leaves

I doubt that. Red Bull Racing continuously cannot decide if they want Racing Bulls to be their junior or the sister team. They pick the narrative that fits for any given moment. Unless they have a rookie ready to enter F1, they will be happy with Tsunoda being there, scoring points and being a reliable reference for Hadjar. Also he will be a good back-up in case Lawson cannot cope at Red Bull Racing.

The only threat to Tsunoda's seat at Racing Bulls is Lindblads promotion into F1, which I don't know when that will happen but earliest 26 or 27 I guess. If Tsunoda is replaced than that'll have little to do with Honda. Red Bull will go for the default party line of there being no point in keeping a driver who doesn't qualify for Red Bull Racing. But it might very well go the other way that Hadjar gets the axe instead, if he isn't good enough. I wouldn't be surprised to be honest.

[Henk_v]

We don't know how short lawsons leash is. If he truly underperforms, he could be replaced by Yuki after 4 races. That would leave a reasonabke 20 races for yuki to get a respectable points haul.

What I see is that Yuki actually has learned to capaitalize on opportunity. He is hampered by horrible strategy.

What I kike about Yuki is that he very rarely blames the car. He just drives what he has.

[lio007]

Does anybody of you think Red Bull will start a shopping tour for experienced engineers?
In terms of budget cap they must have now some millions ready to spend (Rob Marshall, Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley...the most prominent names that left the team, have been for sure at the top of RBR salary bill). For sure there are successors in place that got a pay rise, but I believe not that much.

In the background Williams is definitely on a shopping tour at Red Bull for 2nd row-engineers.