2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Xyz22]

2024 WDC is now locked barring any random reliability issue / disaster.
Car is ok and Norris keeps making mistakes.

[avantman]

I just had a look into telemetry. Ver was fastest and faster than everyone in top 5 in T19, and as fast as others at worst in T20. Wasn't conservative there at all, precise rather. Being 15cm wider on the exit doesnt gain you a whole lot of laptime in such corner. Norris telemetry looks particularly horrible through T19. Looks super conservative indeed to put it mildly. Lost pole there.
Ham was almost 3 tenths up on Max coming into T12 where he got Yellow flag and made a mistake after. Would've been an easy pole otherwise.

[venkyhere]

I just had a look into telemetry. Ver was fastest and faster than everyone in top 5 in T19, and as fast as others at worst in T20. Wasn't conservative there at all, precise rather. Being 15cm wider on the exit doesnt gain you a whole lot of laptime in such corner. Norris telemetry looks particularly horrible through T19. Looks super conservative indeed to put it mildly. Lost pole there.
Ham was almost 3 tenths up on Max coming into T12 where he got Yellow flag and made a mistake after. Would've been an easy pole otherwise.

The gain doesn't come from the "15cm wider". The gain comes from 'braking as late as possible for the entry into the 90 degree turn' - say the conservative way is to brake 20m earlier than the others who are pushing to the limit. At something like 250kph, 20m is approx 0.2s. That's where the delta really sits. If despite the conservatism, Max is gaining time over others who are really pushing to the limit in T19, that can only mean : (a) others are sliding mid-corner and/or (b) they have lower speed coming into T19 because of poorer exit from previous corner.

[avantman]

The gain doesn't come from the "15cm wider". The gain comes from 'braking as late as possible for the entry into the 90 degree turn' - say the conservative way is to brake 20m earlier than the others who are pushing to the limit

Nonsense! Complete and utter. Lando braked later than Max into T19 and got trashed overall. Just go and study the telemetry, theory is not enough. Braking late doesnt make you go faster through 200+kph corner.
and yeah, if stepped on the throttle a tiny bit earlier, he would naturally went a bit wider on the exit gaining time, just not that much as some believe. That's it. T19 isn't about late braking, it's about stable platform and weight transfer.

[venkyhere]

The gain doesn't come from the "15cm wider". The gain comes from 'braking as late as possible for the entry into the 90 degree turn' - say the conservative way is to brake 20m earlier than the others who are pushing to the limit. At something like 250kph, 20m is approx 0.2s. That's where the delta really sits. If despite the conservatism, Max is gaining time over others who are really pushing to the limit in T19, that can only mean : (a) others are sliding mid-corner and/or (b) they have lower speed coming into T19 because of poorer exit from previous corner.

Nonsense! Complete and utter. Lando braked later than Max into T19 and got trashed overall. Just go and study the telemetry, theory is not enough. Braking late doesnt make you go faster through 200+kph corner.
and yeah, if stepped on the throttle a tiny bit earlier, he would naturally went a bit wider on the exit gaining time, just not that much as some believe. That's it. T19 isn't about late braking, it's about stable platform and weight transfer.

Mate, you are too trigger happy. Did you even understand what I wrote ? This T19 is a classic case of 'do you compromise entry and assure a good exit' or 'do you push the entry to the limit and take-the-risk for the exit, hoping the car will hold and won't be compromised on exit'.

Read the *bold* text in the quote once again :

(a) Driving 'with margin' fearing track limit violation, is to brake earlier, and assuring no slide mid-corner, allowing optimal application of throttle at exit, but having already lost a little bit of time in the entry by braking early.

(b) Those pushing to the limit would brake as late as possible, and be on the edge of track limit mid corner, but if the car is sliding outwards too much, they risk either breaching track limits, or wasting a moment counter-steering to make it stay within track limits - both of which delays the re-application of throttle at exit.

Max did (a), Norris did (b). I didn't want to write an essay and hoped that the phrase 'conservative approach' would convey the message. But now I have.

[Sergej]

Good start but I remain cautious, Lando and Leclerc were pole capable but they made mistakes, even Mercedes are a threat, feels like when other will get things right they will be faster.

The car looked balanced though, let's see how the weekend goes.

[avantman]

Read the *bold* text in the quote once again :

(a) Driving 'with margin' fearing track limit violation, is to brake earlier, and assuring no slide mid-corner, allowing optimal application of throttle at exit, but having already lost a little bit of time in the entry by braking early.

Max braked later into T19 than both Russell and Leclerc. He gained laptime through the whole T19 and the following exit on both. Here we assume the corner starts when a driver starts to brakes (which is why it's completely irrelevant how bad or good was the previous exit and top speed coming into T19), and ends when a driver starts to brake into T20. This whole section of lap I was talking about, because this is the only way to analyse who was better/faster there properly. I never look just a minimal speed on the apex for example.

(b) Those pushing to the limit would brake as late as possible, and be on the edge of track limit mid corner, but if the car is sliding outwards too much, they risk either breaching track limits, or wasting a moment counter-steering to make it stay within track limits - both of which delays the re-application of throttle at exit.

Max did (a), Norris did (b). I didn't want to write an essay and hoped that the phrase 'conservative approach' would convey the message. But now I have.

The only two in the top five, who braked later than Max into T19 were Sainz and Norris, correspondingly both lost the most amount of laptime to Max there. (again, T19 starts the moment a driver applies brakes coming into T19 and ends when he starts braking into T20)
Simple logic (if you know what this is) tells us Max' choice of the braking point into T19 couldn't be described as conservative, it was as perfect as it could be, given the circumstances, one and only lap on this tire compound through all session. That allowed him to take the best line having most "flat" platform through the corner, not unsettling the car, carrying more speed all the way through . Surely his braking point was more optimal than anyone's in the top 5. No Idea, who's done better.
Added: and of course, talking about just braking earlier/later into such corner is an awful simplification! It's not your typical braking in the straight line Baku type of 90 degree slow corner. It's far more important how exactly someone brakes, rather than how much earlier or later he starts to apply brakes. It's a matter of fact Max brakes differently and we can't see any of that on the onboards or the telemetry we can get. He often starts to brake a tad earlier than some of his rivals but gains a lot of time in the final phase of braking, and that was the case again in T19 at Cota. a corner in many ways similar to another extremely complicated corner - T10(final corner) in Austria. He was a making a difference in both of them repeatedly over the years.

and as I said, leaving extra margin on the exit tells us only that theoretically he could've stepped back on the throttle a touch early, gaining something like 0.01s-0.025s extra. Barely any more in such 200+ kph corner.
Ive read a lot of your essays, and most times you just throw random stuff out of nowhere. What you wrote above is just another example of that.

[venkyhere]

Ive read a lot of your essays, and most times you just throw random stuff out of nowhere. What you wrote above is just another example of that.

You just agreed to my essay with an even bigger essay and have the gumption to make the above statement ?
The original statement you made was :
Being 15cm wider on the exit doesnt gain you a whole lot of laptime in such corner.
I just countered that the aim of late brakers is not to be 15cm wider, it is to be on the edge of track limits by braking later, and still not suffer any delay for the moment of throttle application at exit. Because of lack of much running on S, they all had to realize that "it's super difficult to not suffer on exit if they are aggressive with entry (because the suspension is not in it's 'soft' setting like Monaco/Singapore and the car will slide)" in the SQ, rather than in the FPs of a traditional weekend.

[Rikhart]

Redbull now seems to me to have a flexier front wing, finally.

[Juzh]

Good start but I remain cautious, Lando and Leclerc were pole capable but they made mistakes, even Mercedes are a threat, feels like when other will get things right they will be faster.

The car looked balanced though, let's see how the weekend goes.

Russell should also have taken pole, but he messed up T1. Basically everyone in top 4 except Max screwed up their laps in some way, so this lap was a definite Max pole, rather than RB20 pole. Car itself is only good in super high speed corners, but its weak in slow speed and on straights. We will see how much race pace car actually has. My suspicion is not a whole lot.

[organic]

Good start but I remain cautious, Lando and Leclerc were pole capable but they made mistakes, even Mercedes are a threat, feels like when other will get things right they will be faster.

The car looked balanced though, let's see how the weekend goes.

Russell should also have taken pole, but he messed up T1. Basically everyone in top 4 except Max screwed up their laps in some way, so this lap was a definite Max pole, rather than RB20 pole. Car itself is only good in super high speed corners, but its weak in slow speed and on straights. We will see how much race pace car actually has. My suspicion is not a whole lot.

Looking at the telemetry again it does feel like it required others to mess up quite a lot to get pole.. hopefully race pace is close enough that overtaking isn't possible

[Paa]

Yes, Hamilton, Leclerc and Norris were all on route to pole if not their mistakes. Max had a relatively clean lap, did not left much in that.
He could have easily been 4th.

[pantherxxx]

Verstappen was faster than the Mercedes and Norris is Q2 too. Maybe RB20 is better to drive overall, at least for Max.

[avantman]

Verstappen was faster than the Mercedes and Norris is Q2 too. Maybe RB20 is better to drive overall, at least for Max.

guys....it's always better to have a short look at the data first, everyone knows what f1-tempo is. Norris had a second lap in SQ2 where he was improving massively but aborted the lap in the end to hide pace. He himself was much slower in SQ3 than himself in SQ2 where he had much slower tire and slower track. Well well well...have we already seen something like that from the choker Lando??? Was it in Miami?
The fact that Mercedes came out so early in SQ3 tell us they were very confident in their pace on soft fueled for one fast lap only.

[Sergej]

Start with George inside will be a nightmare, I can easily see Max pushed wide into T1 and losing many places.

Let's hope for a repeat of last year's start.