2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[venkyhere]

takeaways for me :

1. amazing drive by Perez, he was onto P2, preserved his tyres superbly. However, his not-top-tier racecraft when he is the attacker shows up again. He has lost places like this in so many tracks, even in Singapore. It was a no brainer, to always go on the inside of T1, even to near the wall, because its impossible to go in the outside and overtake for T1, as the 'over-under' wont work here since the pass is achieved via outbraking 'through the corner', not 'before the corner' (it might work in COTA T1, where there is elevation change, but no way it works here - it's pretty basic, is it not?). Regarding the crash, feels really sorry for him. For the first time in 6 months, he looked competitive, and he was done in, by a notty Sainz.

Perez has had some questionable race craft but not today. Leclerc was always going to close the door on the inside very late, which would have killed Perez's momentum and negated the DRS on that lap (Leclerc knew what he was doing, he knew he could get away with aggressive blocking for 1-2 laps). Perez had no choice but to go to the outside and try to go all the way past. He only had 1 more chance.

No...don't go to the outside, risk the momentum loss and stick with leClerc on the inside itself. Sainz behind wouldn't be able to do a two-car sized over-under even if he was ahead of Perez at the bend. How many lap1 clusters have we seen at so many races, where 'not switching over' to the outside, even if the inside going move doesn't work out, is the way to go, because the inside guys can wash wide in such corners, where the speeds drop down to two digits and the outside guy has enough time to brake-again uncomfortably to avoid a crash.... (Perez had enough time to brake and avoid his nose hitting the understeering LeClerc).

Helmut Marko: "We believe that from Austin we will have a package that should make us more competitive, probably even very competitive."

As I keep saying, dont believe a word the old man says

Max to SkySports:

"Already in qualifying I didn't feel like the final change we did with the set-up was the right way. We paid the price for that. It's probably as simple as that, if you look at Checo he had a much better race. He was more comfortable."

"From our side we tried something with the set-up going into qualifying, and it didn't go work out. You win and lose as a team. Of course I am not happy with this performance, but at the other end it sometimes works out great! You make some final changes before qualifying and it puts the car together - unfortunately this time it didnt."

Redbull are going the Thomas-Alva-Edison way, exactly what Mercedes went through in 2022. Experimenting 'out of hope' rather than out of conviction.

[venkyhere]

Let's pray we survive Singapore now.

higher ride heights.
I am expecting a disaster. Will have done well, if they finish P7-P8 in the race. Have no expectations from quali, even a Q2 exit wouldn't surprise me.

[Alexf1]

Can you elaborate a bit more on the missing or ignored details?

At least this analysis goes a lot further than 'Since Miami Red Bull was slow, now there is regulation change and Scarbbs showed the 'principle' of the system, so Red Bull must have been cheating..."

- RB's dramatic drop of pace compared to Ferrari in Miami was completely ignored:

---* in Bahrain, Jeddah and Japan, Ferrari was about 20s away from Max regardless of who was leading Ferrari driver
---* Australia and China were outliers for RB and Ferrari, so we can ignore those results
---* in Miami Leclerc was slowed down by Piastri a bit in the 1st stint and matched Max' pace in second stint (once out of dirty air)
---* in Miami there were still no updates for Ferrarim while RB already had a small package in Japan
---* Max damaging his car was reported by Horner as 0.25s in first corner alone, but he was actaully faster in the first corner on his following laps and was wildly metronomic on Hards after the SC, his pace was considerably more stable than Norris' or Leclerc's - so there is no tangible evidence to support the tiny diffuser damage had any impact on his pace
---* bottom line - in a weekend where RB was not compromised by poor starting position, degradation or other aspects, Ferrari cut the gap by 3-4 tenths, without any upgrades


- McLaren results before Miami are missing a few key aspects:

---* comparing their previous races to RB is relevant only in China's final stint (the gap was 0.55s a lap and fairly linear over 25 laps) since the first stint was massively affected by Alonso starting P2 and Norris subsequently getting stuck behind Perez
---* Bahrain was a complete outlier for McLaren, Jeddah saw Piastri (at the time slower driver) as leading driver due to a gamble with Norris and missing the stop under SC and Japan was also a bit of an outlier since McLaren suffered with deg more than any race before or after (they were setup for cold Q session obviously)
---* bottom line - McLaren's gap to RB was arguably 5-6 tenths a lap in the race

- McLaren results in Miami are missing a few key aspects:

---* Norris had the sole fully-updated car and his Sprint ended in T1 so Sprint pace comparison is irrelevant
---* McLaren misjudged the setup both in SQ and Q in Miami, compromising Norris' start of the race
---* since he was so far behind in 1st stint and had completely fresh tyres for 2nd stint, we can't directly compare Norris' pace to Max' but he was obviously quicker by 1-2 tenths
---* bottom line - in a weekend where RB was not compromised by poor starting position, degradation or other aspects, McLaren cut the gap by 6-8 tenths, while their upgrade was reported as worth 4 tenths a lap

There's also a few details regarding Mercedes' pace improvement over RB, but not over Ferrari and McLaren, but their pace was almost always compromised by traffic and starting position at some point (early in the season) so it's not as valid argument to be taken into account like McLaren and Ferrari pace before Miami.

This could be why RB lost pace (and top speed) advantage:

[Vanja #66]

It's a mechanical setting issue as I said:

"A wheel came off the ground all the time, so every time in all the slow corners, I was bouncing in all directions. It was like a go-kart," Verstappen added.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/301397/v ... th-it.html

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

[Jdn1327]

It's a mechanical setting issue as I said:

"A wheel came off the ground all the time, so every time in all the slow corners, I was bouncing in all directions. It was like a go-kart," Verstappen added.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/301397/v ... th-it.html

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

Do you think Perez is more at ease with this car because it has a 'lazier' front end than before the update? Verstappen enjoys a very pointy front end...

[organic]

I'm optimistic about Austin. They will be winning again

[Vanja #66]

It's a mechanical setting issue as I said:




https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/301397/v ... th-it.html

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

Do you think Perez is more at ease with this car because it has a 'lazier' front end than before the update? Verstappen enjoys a very pointy front end...

No idea, I expected far more from Max this weekend. Something's off and my reasoning on what's going on with each car and driver no longer "works" with Max

[Jurgen von Diaz]

It's a mechanical setting issue as I said:




https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/301397/v ... th-it.html

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

Do you think Perez is more at ease with this car because it has a 'lazier' front end than before the update? Verstappen enjoys a very pointy front end...

Pérez wakes up when the car becomes non-dominant—wrong place, wrong time. The dominant Red Bull car is not for average drivers.

[AR3-GP]

I'm optimistic about Austin. They will be winning again

Is this sarcasm?

[Jdn1327]

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

Do you think Perez is more at ease with this car because it has a 'lazier' front end than before the update? Verstappen enjoys a very pointy front end...

No idea, I expected far more from Max this weekend. Something's off and my reasoning on what's going on with each car and driver no longer "works" with Max

Also Redbull are making some very odd and questionable setup choices. It seems they're doing the opposite of what verstappen wants. They've seem to fallen into the Mercedes limbo of being quick in p1,2,3 and then falling completely off a cliff in qualifying and the race.

[AR3-GP]

It's a mechanical setting issue as I said:

"A wheel came off the ground all the time, so every time in all the slow corners, I was bouncing in all directions. It was like a go-kart," Verstappen added.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/301397/v ... th-it.html

Fair enough. I honestly couldn't believe they went for (presumably, allegedly) lower downforce setup and stiffened up the car at the same time. No idea what the setup was and what was changed, but obviously Checo had no issues today. It happens, but Max was subpar a second weekend in a row

Yes we know Checo had no issues today and this is promising. Perez was on his way to beating both Ferraris. It appears that they have found a way to progress.

Max's issue was a subpar car on both weekends but nice try slipping that one in...

[chrisc90]

Max will be partially responsible for changing the setup.

[Vanja #66]

Max's issue was a subpar car on both weekends but nice try slipping that one in...

Did the team make that setup change without him knowing it? If he agreed, it's his choice. I'm not shaming him, but he could have done better today, he's not in a good place and doesn't trust the car and this makes him slower than usual, like any other driver. It happened to many other drivers this season alone

[organic]

I'm optimistic about Austin. They will be winning again

Is this sarcasm?

No.. they brought patchwork experiments and for the first time in 7 races they had the same race pace as the leader. With the actual corrections at austin and circuits that aren't so unfavourable to the car maybe the car can fight for wins again.

[Vettel165]

Yeah lets have some faith and come back stronger in "Austin". Singapore I am thinking will be race to forget, p6 or p7 will be max possible with this car. Damage limitation. Just a miracle and a good Q3 can save us...