2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Dunlay]

Red Bull appears to be in a difficult position now. They have lost the edge the car had and the others around them are developing their cars faster and they have more development time. I have a feeling that Max might scrap to WDC, but the WCC would be gone soon. With Mercedes also having made progress, Perez can now barely get into Q1, even on his best weekends and probably more often starting from Q3 group on normal weekends. The recent upgrades (downgrades?) have taken the car far away from him. This once again appears to be a 2019/20 type of handling of the car. Max is hitting walls to extract performance and the second driver is crashing regularly while fighting with the lower midfield.

It's going to haunt Horner that he made a huge mistake of retaining Perez. Atleast the best course of rectification now is to swap him with Tsunoda.

[Sergej]

I agree that in the last 4 races McLaren was equal/ahead of Red Bull, but it's also true that this series of tracks was maybe the worst possible for the RB20, so the evaluation might be biased by this

Also, it's yet to see if McLaren will be able to produce another upgrade as big as the Miami one, which basically completed a "not finished" car that they had for the first 5 races (easier to add performance to an uncompleted car)

Last but not least, with all of the difficulties of these 4 races, Max was still able to outscore everyone, even with a weekend where he did not maximise the result (Monaco)

On a negative side, Perez eroded another chunk of budget with yesterday's destroyed rear wing (and I don't know what more) this is starting to get annoying, I don't think that Max needs his help to win the wdc but Jesus, at least don't do damage !

[FW17]

Was Max really staying away from the kerbs? Looked like the final chicane Max was really laying it thick.

[AR3-GP]

I agree that in the last 4 races McLaren was equal/ahead of Red Bull, but it's also true that this series of tracks was maybe the worst possible for the RB20, so the evaluation might be biased by this

The problem is that Mclaren is good everywhere while Red Bull has to worry about "weak" and "strong" tracks. They were already very close in Silverstone last year. Red Bull are fortunate that Piastri drops 10 seconds to Norris every race otherwise Red Bull would be finished

With Mclaren, they already discussed 2 more big updates. Everything goes to plan. For Red Bull it feels more like they have been reacting. Dr. Obbs once said that Red Bull would be looking at the Mclaren to see what they can learn.

[Sergej]

I mean, I expect a very strong McLaren in Barcelona and Silverstone, but also a much more comfortable Red Bull (otherwise yes I will be worried), plus after Canada GP I feel that the really weak tracks for RB20 (à la Monaco) will be very few; as I said many times, this is not 2023 where you win every race, this is a more "normal" WDC campaign where you win the races you can (and I think they will be more than half for Red Bull) and maximise points where you can't win, Max is fully able to do this; of course I'm talking about WDC, the WCC is pretty much fuc*ed at this point.

[Sergej]

also, update from DrObbs

-I’m hearing conflicting information about the RB20 update in Barcelona. May not be the big update it was planned. The bigger package could be pushed to Silverstone now.

[basti313]

Avoiding a SC for max cost Perez 3 place grid penalty for Barcelona

I think this is a joke.
We see someone stupidly throwing it into the wall nearly every race. I can not count, but it feels like a stupid crash with a car that could have been driven to a save location has caused a SC every second race in the last year...and many were race changing.
Now someone takes the car away and gets a penalty...

[Jdn1327]

I gotta say, that was a proper Champions drive from Max. He was the only one in the top 5 that did not make any errors...keeping it on the island gave him the win. And in a car that was not the quickest this weekend.

[chrisc90]

Back in your corner James.

[ali623]

Red Bull appears to be in a difficult position now. They have lost the edge the car had and the others around them are developing their cars faster and they have more development time. I have a feeling that Max might scrap to WDC, but the WCC would be gone soon. With Mercedes also having made progress, Perez can now barely get into Q1, even on his best weekends and probably more often starting from Q3 group on normal weekends. The recent upgrades (downgrades?) have taken the car far away from him. This once again appears to be a 2019/20 type of handling of the car. Max is hitting walls to extract performance and the second driver is crashing regularly while fighting with the lower midfield.

It's going to haunt Horner that he made a huge mistake of retaining Perez. Atleast the best course of rectification now is to swap him with Tsunoda.

Max will be fine with the WDC, he has about a 60pt advantage currently over Leclerc/Norris and extended that lead over the last four races despite the issues. The European leg is coming up now, all circuits where he excels at - barring any reliability issues/DNFs, I'll be surprised if he doesn't have a 100+ pts lead by the summer break.

[Jambier]

Max will be champion of course, but Red Bull can be in a dangerous position.
Luckily for the team, McLaren and Ferrari will split between them the points.

I believe that 2025 will be another thing, could be a very interesting season with many teams very close!

[.poz]

what about the strange team radio by Max about a "locked" suspension ?

[venkyhere]

I gotta say, that was a proper Champions drive from Max. He was the only one in the top 5 that did not make any errors...keeping it on the island gave him the win. And in a car that was not the quickest this weekend.

Yes, it was a champion drive, particularly the final safety car restart. Pulled nearly 1.8 or 1.9 seconds gap over one lap (must have used the battery like hell but nevertheless).
But he did make mistakes :
1. burnt up his first set of inters chasing RUS, when the prudent thing was to bring them in sanely like NOR did. Look the advantage he had by doing so.
2. Had an off in T1
Luckily, the mistakes didn't hurt eventually, thanks to mega safety car restarts. One on inters and one on M.

what about the strange team radio by Max about a "locked" suspension ?

I think that was a reference to the super-stiff front susp on the RB20. No compliance on the kerbs.

[Waz]

Avoiding a SC for max cost Perez 3 place grid penalty for Barcelona

Feel like it's a bit OTT, and maybe conditions should be outlined to drive a damaged car to pits. For example, speed limiter on, maximum of half a lap or similar, and any parts that do fall off will result in a pitlane start at next race.

[Waz]

what about the strange team radio by Max about a "locked" suspension ?

He said the ride was bad and FEELS like a locked suspension.

You could see just after that the car was bouncing like it had almost no suspension.

He wasn't being literal