2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Waz]

There's some serious revisionism or omission going on in some posts. I won't get too drawn in, but currently Hamilton can't handle Russell, Sainz is both giving Leclerc a hard time and also getting beaten by him quite comfortably and let's rather leave Tsunoda out who wasn't that convincing against a Ricciardo so out of form that he should change his name.

Verstappen is a relentless competitor. He's like an upgraded version of peak Alonso, where if Alonso was 9/10 in all aspects of racing, Verstappen is a 9.5/10.

There's a reason they used to share the record for wins from different start positions.

And coincidentally, they're both on the receiving end of claims about not facing top teammates, while all their teammates have gone on to other teams and looked more than respectable against other drivers.

[pantherxxx]

I disagree on the dont-beat-max contracts. I think Max is much faster then any driver, and when those drivers try to match Max they get lost and spiral downward. It is not a matter of not allowed to beat Max, more a case of: we've seen this in the past and it wont work. Just focus on learning and improving, not on beating him.
Before red bull had goal: be within 0.3 of Max and your golden. Im starting to think the worse the car gets, the bigger this defficit becomes.

Well we'll never know, because they've never put a top tier calibre driver in the other car whilst Max has been sat in the other car from the start of the season.

Sainz vs Max was close, so was Ricciardo vs Max. After that Red Bull explored the pointy front end like Benetton did with Schumacher. When the other driver can't cope with that, and can't get the car as competitive with any other setup I think it's clear it's got nothing to do with Max. In F1 a driver is supposed to be able to drive any car to the limit he's given:

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/vers ... greatness/

It was only close because Verstappen was just a teenager, with too little experience. Since the second half of 2018, Ricciardo had no chance against Max.

[Sergej]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/pierre-wa ... evaluation

so accordingly to Waché, RB21 is 3-4 tenths faster then Abu-Dhabi spec RB20 (which is clearly not enough to be able to fight with McLaren this year)

big summary of article: we reduced the peak potential of the car to make it more stable and drivable

[organic]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/pierre-wa ... evaluation

Pierre Waché explains the RB21 direction:

“What we did this year, is to maybe reduce the complete potential of the car, the peakiness, but giving a more easy way to use by the driver – that’s what our main purpose was, especially on the entry of the corner.

“It’s not as simple as that, because it’s a characteristic that the peak of downforce is not only on one dimension. It’s a multi-dimensional system that is not only downforce – it is also suspension-wise and what the kinematic is doing, but is an overall car characteristic of how the driver feels.

“But, fundamentally, it’s exactly that – reduce the overall potential in grip and capacity of the car to make it more flat.

“That’s what we are seeing at the moment.

“Last year, we had a quite difficult car and, to rebalance it, it would put you in a corner in terms of what you could do [setup-wise].

Last year, we had a quite difficult car and, to rebalance it, it would put you in a corner in terms of what you could do [setup-wise].

“Now it is giving us a wider range of setups that we have to explore. And it will take time to see what the best compromise is, and the compromise could be quite different from track to track, because it gives us a lot more freedom.”

Given the improvements shown by Red Bull in the latter stages of the 2024 season, was it a case of refining that idea further, optimising the package that had been used in the final races of the season?

“No, last year we did a patch, I would say,” he laughed, revealing that the RB21, at this point, is “roughly” around 0.3-0.4 seconds a lap quicker than the RB20’s spec used in the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“A patch to reduce the potential a bit, make it a little bit wider, but it was a small patch. Now we did the full concept of the car in this direction.”

Pierre Waché said that the Bahrain test rb21 is roughly 0.3-0.4s faster than the rb20 at Abu Dhabi 2024. But they have focused on making the performance map flatter, and enabling different setup compromises that weren't available with the rb20

For me this is clear indication we won't fight at the start. I'm expecting at least 3 tenths deficit to McLaren and possibly Ferrari. Who knows maybe they can recover this with development, but I won't hold my breath. Why would we be able to find multiple tenths on McLaren/Ferrari's own development when we have made 3-4 tenths over the entire winter. Perhaps a write-off of a season

[ringo]

I would say if the rb20 he is talking about is the brazil or qatar level pf performance then there is nothing to worry about.
As for Lawson vs Max, Lawson will not have any chance to beat Max. Not because he can't have a better day than Max, but because Redbull has a revolving door of drivers.
That's how this team has kept its drivers in line over the years. You can only buck the trend once or twice until you are replaced.
It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so. Makes no sense. Best he enjoys the #2 role for 2 years, look good doing it, then market himself to another team.
I am interested in how well he does driving against the other cars, let's ignore Max. Perez looked like a midfeild car last year. So hoping that Liam races for top 6 spots at least.

[Sergej]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/pierre-wa ... evaluation

Pierre Waché explains the RB21 direction:

“What we did this year, is to maybe reduce the complete potential of the car, the peakiness, but giving a more easy way to use by the driver – that’s what our main purpose was, especially on the entry of the corner.

“It’s not as simple as that, because it’s a characteristic that the peak of downforce is not only on one dimension. It’s a multi-dimensional system that is not only downforce – it is also suspension-wise and what the kinematic is doing, but is an overall car characteristic of how the driver feels.

“But, fundamentally, it’s exactly that – reduce the overall potential in grip and capacity of the car to make it more flat.

“That’s what we are seeing at the moment.

“Last year, we had a quite difficult car and, to rebalance it, it would put you in a corner in terms of what you could do [setup-wise].

Last year, we had a quite difficult car and, to rebalance it, it would put you in a corner in terms of what you could do [setup-wise].

“Now it is giving us a wider range of setups that we have to explore. And it will take time to see what the best compromise is, and the compromise could be quite different from track to track, because it gives us a lot more freedom.”

Given the improvements shown by Red Bull in the latter stages of the 2024 season, was it a case of refining that idea further, optimising the package that had been used in the final races of the season?

“No, last year we did a patch, I would say,” he laughed, revealing that the RB21, at this point, is “roughly” around 0.3-0.4 seconds a lap quicker than the RB20’s spec used in the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“A patch to reduce the potential a bit, make it a little bit wider, but it was a small patch. Now we did the full concept of the car in this direction.”

Pierre Waché said that the Bahrain test rb21 is roughly 0.3-0.4s faster than the rb20 at Abu Dhabi 2024. But they have focused on making the performance map flatter, and enabling different setup compromises that weren't available with the rb20

For me this is clear indication we won't fight at the start. I'm expecting at least 3 tenths deficit to McLaren and possibly Ferrari. Who knows maybe they can recover this with development, but I won't hold my breath. Why would we be able to find multiple tenths on McLaren/Ferrari's own development when we have made 3-4 tenths over the entire winter. Perhaps a write-off of a season

No way you can recover if you start 3-4 tenths behind, unless you already have a b-spec car in the pocket ready to be released; not that it would be impossible per se, but it is this year with the switch to 2026 to be made asap.

[Sergej]

I would say if the rb20 he is talking about is the brazil or qatar level pf performance then there is nothing to worry about.

Brazil level of performance is Max Verstappen it couldn't rain 20 races sadly.

[organic]

As Ringo suggests, it depends which sort of performance rb20 we're discussing. If it's ahead of the Qatar rb20 then things will be fine. If it's the performance that was already quite far off McLaren/Ferrari then things don't look great.

I think considering they've changed their approach substantially with Waché claiming it's a new concept for them, it's possible they'll unlock an avenue of development that is easy to pursue and find performance. But I find that unlikely.

[Alexf1]

It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so.

As if a F1 team would deliberately slow a car down. If that would be the case they would have allowed Perez some better setups more often..

[venkyhere]

The ones i mentioned would soon make Max question why he is in F1.

This is the most professional learned opinion I've read about any F1 driver.

[Bill]

It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so.

As if a F1 team would deliberately slow a car down. If that would be the case they would have allowed Perez some better setups more often..

NO2 Cars usually get updates later and Alonso has accused Mclaren of tampering with tire pressures to help lewis in singapore 2007.its not explicit but its a form of deliberate slow down.

[ringo]

It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so.

As if a F1 team would deliberately slow a car down. If that would be the case they would have allowed Perez some better setups more often..

They wont slow him down. I think his side of the garage just wont be allowed to outsmart the other side. Be that with tyre prep, hiding aces for Liam to use in Q3, or strategy.
If Liam sees a development path, it just wont be entertained.
Redbull did this last year. Newey revealed this.
Perez from his experience knew the car wasn't right. The team didn't really put resources into pursuing these concerns. So it's not a case from slowing down one guy, it's more like not providing the resources to making him faster. Because why make him get closer to the #1?
The drawback of this approach is it puts all the eggs in one basket and that development path may not be the best.
Teams like ferrari and mercedes split the proirities between the two drivers. So that yeilds more relevant data and reduces the risk of the the development direction.

Max was driving the car that was given and continued down a path that did make him much faster than Perez. So that was okay to him.
However it was making an issue worse that he soon detected many races down into the season.

Liam's addition should make things interesting. He is younger than Max, and not set in any mold like a Perez, a Hulk, Ricciardo. He will work with what the team gives him, but his outspoken personality may at some point find issue with his ideas not being given priority.

I think Max beats him handily. But Liam may outqualify max 1 to 3 times. He should have a lot of raw pace and energy at 22 years old. I expect a few wtf! moments as well between the two on track especially of Liam on a different strategy not moving out of the way of Max or even on a lap 1 start where he could get a better launch but doesnt want to give Max room to get ahead and build a gap.
Tsunoda may get a surprice appearance if Liam goes rogue.

[organic]

It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so.

As if a F1 team would deliberately slow a car down. If that would be the case they would have allowed Perez some better setups more often..

Max was driving the car that was given and continued down a path that did make him much faster than Perez. So that was okay to him.
However it was making an issue worse that he soon detected many races down into the season.

I agree with most of your post above and I'd say it's one of your most insightful on a red bull topic, but I'd add that:

internally, Max made very clear the issues he felt with the car already in testing 2024 which later became the major performance-limiting problems that we all know about But the engineering team believed at the time to ignore/place less weight on this feedback & that it was still best to pursue the direction as they were finding fruitful gains with it

[pantherxxx]

I wouldn't write off Red Bull just yet. This article on PlanetF1 says that Red Bull was massively sandbagging in the test: https://www.planetf1.com/features/red-b ... i-mercedes

"If we look at the telemetry of the fastest laps of Leclerc and Lawson in this stint we get the answer: Red Bull is really hiding its real pace especially in the low speed corners. Apart from using a very conservative engine map for their race simulation, what might be really be causing this is a car running with extra weight -sandbagging- which is why we see Lawson struggling at low speed corners and having to drop pace hitting clearly lower engine revs."

What if Wache is intentionally downplaying Red Bull's performance so that McLaren will think they're comfortably ahead?

What we know is that, although Newey has left the team, the other key engineers who were instrumental in designing the highly dominant 2022 and 2023 cars are still with Red Bull. It's hard to believe they've suddenly forgotten how to design competitive cars. It's also possible that, with just the base configuration, they've already gained 3-4 tenths over last year's car, and a major upgrade is on the way that will unlock even more performance. The bottom line is, Red Bull should not be written off. Max has won 2 of the last 4 races, meaning that even the RB20 was not that far behind Mclaren at the end of the last year.

[Alexf1]

It wont help Liam's career if he decides to defeat Max. I dont even think the garage will give him a setup or strategy to do so.

As if a F1 team would deliberately slow a car down. If that would be the case they would have allowed Perez some better setups more often..

They wont slow him down. I think his side of the garage just wont be allowed to outsmart the other side. Be that with tyre prep, hiding aces for Liam to use in Q3, or strategy.
If Liam sees a development path, it just wont be entertained.
Redbull did this last year. Newey revealed this.
Perez from his experience knew the car wasn't right. The team didn't really put resources into pursuing these concerns. So it's not a case from slowing down one guy, it's more like not providing the resources to making him faster. Because why make him get closer to the #1?
The drawback of this approach is it puts all the eggs in one basket and that development path may not be the best.
Teams like ferrari and mercedes split the proirities between the two drivers. So that yeilds more relevant data and reduces the risk of the the development direction.

Max was driving the car that was given and continued down a path that did make him much faster than Perez. So that was okay to him.
However it was making an issue worse that he soon detected many races down into the season.

Liam's addition should make things interesting. He is younger than Max, and not set in any mold like a Perez, a Hulk, Ricciardo. He will work with what the team gives him, but his outspoken personality may at some point find issue with his ideas not being given priority.

I think Max beats him handily. But Liam may outqualify max 1 to 3 times. He should have a lot of raw pace and energy at 22 years old. I expect a few wtf! moments as well between the two on track especially of Liam on a different strategy not moving out of the way of Max or even on a lap 1 start where he could get a better launch but doesnt want to give Max room to get ahead and build a gap.
Tsunoda may get a surprice appearance if Liam goes rogue.

I think with Perez it's got more to do with him spending most of 2022 and 2023 in season looking for a setup that suited him more but not finding the same pace with it as the other car. In 2024 Red Bull was not convined anymore it was down to finding a miracle alternative setup but Perez finding the limit of his talent earlier than the driver in the other car.