Red Bull Racing 2012

[CHT]

Webber's had his chances, it has to be said.

No doubt. I'm a huge Webber fan, but he had the chance to really string together solid results after both Monaco and Silverstone. After today, and considering what I said before, I doubt he can make another win happen, not with so much still on the line.

webber was a big disappointment in Singapore actually. without Lewis, he is the only one who has the potential and the car to challenge Alonso for podium, but he end up so far back.

[RB7ate9]

Webber's had his chances, it has to be said.

No doubt. I'm a huge Webber fan, but he had the chance to really string together solid results after both Monaco and Silverstone. After today, and considering what I said before, I doubt he can make another win happen, not with so much still on the line.

webber was a big disappointment in Singapore actually. without Lewis, he is the only one who has the potential and the car to challenge Alonso for podium, but he end up so far back.

It just appeared that everything was off about his drive. Couldn't overtake the Force Indias and the STR, poor strategy, and just all over the place. I pretty much gave up hope when he did a solid overtake of a Force India (Hulk? DiResta?) for something like 5th, but immediately went into the pits. Red Bull must have split their strategy for Singapore, and Webber just added the call on his list of woes.

[raymondu999]

I think Red Bull committed to a 3-stop strategy actually. The McLarens were pushing on to make their tyres last to L13/14 in the first stint, while the Bulls came in on something like L9 and L10.

Webber probably was on course to do a 3-stopper until the two safety cars beautifully wrecked the strategy for him. Vettel I think was doing his best to push and stretch the stint, especially after he saw a chance of a victory, with Lewis's retirement, with an on-the-fly strategy adjustment.

Without said safety cars I think Mark would've been mega towards the end, especially if he would've done OPOO.

[RB7ate9]

I think Red Bull committed to a 3-stop strategy actually. The McLarens were pushing on to make their tyres last to L13/14 in the first stint, while the Bulls came in on something like L9 and L10.

Webber probably was on course to do a 3-stopper until the two safety cars beautifully wrecked the strategy for him. Vettel I think was doing his best to push and stretch the stint, especially after he saw a chance of a victory, with Lewis's retirement, with an on-the-fly strategy adjustment.

Without said safety cars I think Mark would've been mega towards the end, especially if he would've done OPOO.

Forgot that both Webber and Vettel pitted close to each other. The second safety car did throw a massive wrench in the strategy.

[raymondu999]

Yeah they did. I think they were looking at the pace of Hulkenberg/Perez towards the end of their stints and determined the deg was too high for a 2-stop to be competitive.

And being in Indonesia I had to suffer the Star Sports F1 commentators. They were saying (with 33 laps to go @ Mark's second stop) "Interesting! Red Bull feel that the supersoft can last till the end then!" I had a massive facepalm. How was it unclear that it was a 3-stop in the making? Take the supersoft for 33 laps, while they only lasted 14, tops in the first stint? Fat chance.

[zoro_f1]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UmVJTDWkpA[/youtube]

[Nando]

Fantastic interview.

Love it when he sort of stumbled on his words with the drivers head and calling it a part

[zoro_f1]

yes... quite a good interview with adrian because we didn't see him more often to speek.

also, good questions from the journalist...

[Raptor22]

I've always been concerned with his views on safety and this interview just reinforces that with respect to the matter of enclosed canopies. He always seems to think that the solutions to safety have to be expensive which is something I disagree with because its always just a design problem. Cost comes from how you approach the problem.

It's really insightful to see how much of a racer he is at heart (he used to race cars in his youth apparently) and even when penning the concept for his RedBull race cars he is thinking performance with safety as a nuisance to be considered at the expense of performance. Its like he struggles to make that shift to using safety as a performance enhancer.

I'd think he would be leading the charge to closed canopies thanks to the benefits it would have on the aerodynamics of the car. It would create an added area he can exploit yet here he is advocating some other (and likely unsightly) form of head protection.
The major concern with driver head protection is penetration from flying objects, the largest of which is another F1 car. If I understand him, he rather see raised side bolsters which is going to decrease the drivers visibility even further. I always Newey's solutions to problems but i am going to reserve on this one till I see what he comes up with. IMO, the closed canopy is still the way to go to improve safety as well as racing. I also reserve the right to be wrong

[snoop1050]

not exactly 2012 team related but i thought it was worthy of posting

RBR have rehoused their trophies
old

new

[Nando]

also, good questions from the journalist...

We don´t see that too often today

[snoop1050]

webbers getting slow in his old age
http://twitpic.com/b5jcmb
i posted the cabinet on here almost 2 days ago

[Nando]

Prediction for the coming years:

Da Costa will either move straight past STR, into RBR or both Vergne and Ricci will be replaced by Frijn and Da Costa where they get one year then Da Costa moves up to RBR.

pure guess but i think something similar might happen. I think Da Costa could very well be a Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton, Maldonado type of fast guy.

[FoxHound]

I look forward to seeing Da Costa. On twitter alot of the Red Bull mouthpieces speak well of him.

[raymondu999]

Yes. If we were to take the average points per race, I believe Da Costa has the highest of this year's WSR grid. Alternatively if you eliminated the scores of the first five races he would be the champion.

I'm thinking they'd want to probably move at least one STR guy up to RBR as soon as 2014. With Mark Webber possibly retiring and Vettel possibly off to Ferrari, they'll need a driver up there. I know a lot of people are citing Raikkonen/Hamilton/etc as possible RBR drivers but I don't see it. IMO it would make zero sense to forgo their young driver program as such, especially with the system already bottlenecked as it is.

After Ricciardo and Vergne, he is next in line in the RB YDP hierarchy, but who is the next one? Is anyone familiar enough with the RB YDP in terms of who comes after da Costa?