Red Bull RB21 Speculation Thread

[f1isgood]

I expect the car to take a good step in race pace. I would much rather prefer a car that's competitive enough to fight for P2/P3 on every track and when good fight for P1. Basically just need a car like 2021. Dominant in a couple, reasonably good in many races. Slower in many races but overall, without bad luck a clean win for the team.

[Seanspeed]

The years you mention were only half of Mercedes’ domination and my point wasn’t that Mercedes didn’t initially have a huge power advantage. My point, was that Mercedes didn’t have that power advantage the whole way and they continued to dominate even when going against more powerful engines.

It’s just wrong to say they had nothing going on for them except for the powerful engines. Mercedes was at the top of the game for too long and nobody stays that long at the top just because one reason only.

It’s disrespectful to the team of engineers who made those cars to claim the power unit is what gave them the entire advantage.

From what I remember watching the races back in 2018, I always assumed Ferrari had a better engine than Mercedes, but it seems like at worst it might have been on par with them. That’s still more reason to credit Mercedes aero.

Still, my original comment was actually made as a counter-argument to those who just hold Newey to such high standards, he is practically a god in F1.

You can win without Newey and most of the last decade is proof of that.

While it's correct to say that Mercedes had more going on than just the top engine, what I think is a much more poignant observation is that Red Bull suffered from a lackluster engine for a long time there. Mercedes weren't beating Red Bull because they built a better car and Newey was failing. Red Bull's chassis was still top tier most of that period and there was little RB could do about their engine situation except hope their supplier could execute better.

So yes, you can beat Newey, so long as you can ensure he gets inferior engines to you. :p

[Emag]

The years you mention were only half of Mercedes’ domination and my point wasn’t that Mercedes didn’t initially have a huge power advantage. My point, was that Mercedes didn’t have that power advantage the whole way and they continued to dominate even when going against more powerful engines.

It’s just wrong to say they had nothing going on for them except for the powerful engines. Mercedes was at the top of the game for too long and nobody stays that long at the top just because one reason only.

It’s disrespectful to the team of engineers who made those cars to claim the power unit is what gave them the entire advantage.

From what I remember watching the races back in 2018, I always assumed Ferrari had a better engine than Mercedes, but it seems like at worst it might have been on par with them. That’s still more reason to credit Mercedes aero.

Still, my original comment was actually made as a counter-argument to those who just hold Newey to such high standards, he is practically a god in F1.

You can win without Newey and most of the last decade is proof of that.

While it's correct to say that Mercedes had more going on than just the top engine, what I think is a much more poignant observation is that Red Bull suffered from a lackluster engine for a long time there. Mercedes weren't beating Red Bull because they built a better car and Newey was failing. Red Bull's chassis was still top tier most of that period and there was little RB could do about their engine situation except hope their supplier could execute better.

So yes, you can beat Newey, so long as you can ensure he gets inferior engines to you. :p

I still don’t think that’s quite true.

2015, 2017 and 2020 were all failure years by RedBull where you can’t blame the power unit for the entire deficit they had.

Of course if you want to go by the “Newey is god” narrative you can just say “oh but those years were years where newey wasn’t involved cause he lacked motivation”.

[Paa]

I still don’t think that’s quite true.

2015, 2017 and 2020 were all failure years by RedBull where you can’t blame the power unit for the entire deficit they had.

Of course if you want to go by the “Newey is god” narrative you can just say “oh but those years were years where newey wasn’t involved cause he lacked motivation”.

It is not that simple. Newey talked a lot about this, that during that time they already knew at design phase that their engine will be inferior, for which they had to make aero compromises already at design phase to make up for the engine deficit.

So you are technically correct when stating those were not aero monsters, but in many cases those were conscious compromises, leading to sub optimal design paths due to inferior engine. In other words, their aero would have been different in those years with a stronger engine.

[carisi2k]

I don't think a wholesale change is needed but here is what I believe will be the main items being looked in to for RB21.

1. The air intakes around the cockpit, Halo and the gulleys will be removed or modified to be cleaner.
2. More air for the cooling from the sidepod to help reliability but still expect the shark underbite style to continue
3. Reduced weight as from all reports the RB20 gained a lot of weight over the RB19 and held it up higher.
4. Extra front and rear wing options.
5. A new evolution on the suspension that doesn't throw away everything but uses the lessons from RB18-20.
6. Front wing top flap aero flexing. If the FIA isn't going to police it then they have to match what the other top 3 teams are doing or else give up a big advantage.

[Henk_v]

The FIA declared they will not clamp down on FW aeroelasticity.

I sure hope they made the right bet....

[Cs98]

This timeline is not usual for RB, who like to push things to the last moment. Passing the crash test before the new year speaks to a few things.

1. Evolution, not revolution. The core of the chassis will be the same. We may see some changes to the suspension hard-points but otherwise it will be very similar under the surface.

2. Development will focus on aerodynamic surfaces. RB21 will basically be RB20B.

3. They want as many resources as possible on RB22 when the new year hits, so they’ve gone minimalist on RB21 when it comes to structural items.

[Paa]

2. More air for the cooling from the sidepod to help reliability but still expect the shark underbite style to continue

Is there anything to suggest that they had cooling related reliability problems during the season?
As far as I remember Max had an electric (?) issue with a brand new unit, but other than that I don't remember any complains or remarks regarding the cooling, not even during the hottest weekends.

[napoleon1981]

I didn't keep track of exact amounts, but is appeared too me that they were running seemingly really low engine settings in fp1, 2 and sometimes even 3 for alot of the season. I also vaguely remember that they had to dial the engine back a few times. Not sure if it was cooling related, but they used alot of component and seemingly didn't run them as hard.

[Henk_v]

Well, I allways thought they did run the lower engine setting because Max just doesn't need it. Reliable or not, you run as low and little as you can to reduce wear. Last year they sometimes just did a few Laps in FP. They even "skipped" most of qualifying.

[Wouter]

Marko talks about the direction of the RB21: "The concept is done"

Helmut Marko did release some small details at Sport.de, hoping to move away from the RB20 issues.

"The concept is done, the car is done," Marko said. "We're now going into the final steps.
We're seeing where we can loose some weight.
The assignment for the engineers was to create a car that has a more wide working window and
that is not so critical in the limiting areas so that it isn't hard for a driver to control."

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/321034/m ... -done.html

[dren]

Marko talks about the direction of the RB21: "The concept is done"

Helmut Marko did release some small details at Sport.de, hoping to move away from the RB20 issues.

"The concept is done, the car is done," Marko said. "We're now going into the final steps.
We're seeing where we can loose some weight.
The assignment for the engineers was to create a car that has a more wide working window and
that is not so critical in the limiting areas so that it isn't hard for a driver to control."

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/321034/m ... -done.html

lol he wants his boy Lawson to be able to drive the car.

[f1isgood]

The years you mention were only half of Mercedes’ domination and my point wasn’t that Mercedes didn’t initially have a huge power advantage. My point, was that Mercedes didn’t have that power advantage the whole way and they continued to dominate even when going against more powerful engines.

It’s just wrong to say they had nothing going on for them except for the powerful engines. Mercedes was at the top of the game for too long and nobody stays that long at the top just because one reason only.

It’s disrespectful to the team of engineers who made those cars to claim the power unit is what gave them the entire advantage.

From what I remember watching the races back in 2018, I always assumed Ferrari had a better engine than Mercedes, but it seems like at worst it might have been on par with them. That’s still more reason to credit Mercedes aero.

Still, my original comment was actually made as a counter-argument to those who just hold Newey to such high standards, he is practically a god in F1.

You can win without Newey and most of the last decade is proof of that.

While it's correct to say that Mercedes had more going on than just the top engine, what I think is a much more poignant observation is that Red Bull suffered from a lackluster engine for a long time there. Mercedes weren't beating Red Bull because they built a better car and Newey was failing. Red Bull's chassis was still top tier most of that period and there was little RB could do about their engine situation except hope their supplier could execute better.

So yes, you can beat Newey, so long as you can ensure he gets inferior engines to you. :p

The glazing is getting out of hand. This isn't the early times when one guy could do everything. Newey is a great but please, Red Bull did make worse chassis even in 2021 over the year when it came to race pace. In 2020, even with a par engine they'd admitted they went in the wrong direction. Moreover the chassis was supposedly very innovative in 2017 but was a dud compared to Ferrari and so on.

[organic]

"I would say that the basic concept is ready. The car is de facto finished and it is now going into final production. At that point you see how much weight can be saved," Marko begins his story to Sport1.de . "The task for the engineers was to build a car that has a wider operating window. One that is not so critical on the limit that it is very, very difficult for the drivers to keep the car under control."

"That means better predictability and, if possible, as McLaren has shown, that this performance is delivered on all circuits, and not just on specific tracks. And one of our big weaknesses was that we couldn't drive completely over the kerbs. There was that statement from Max that the car jumps like a kangaroo and on certain circuits that cost us a lot of time. So one thinks that these weaknesses have been solved, but we will only really see that at the test in Bahrain," the Austrian concluded.

[napoleon1981]

Well, I allways thought they did run the lower engine setting because Max just doesn't need it. Reliable or not, you run as low and little as you can to reduce wear. Last year they sometimes just did a few Laps in FP. They even "skipped" most of qualifying.

I agree with your reasoning, the interesting part however is that they still used many components, even compared to previous seasons, or the sister team. This resulted in penalties too, which for sure Max wasn't after.....