2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[bidong]

At the end of the day, even if Max was ahead of Lewis in the first sector by a second but crashes in the last turn, it will not be faster than Lewis because... you need to complete a lap. Let's not fall in a bunch of what ifs. At the end of the day, Max was able to drive a pole lap in the first two sectors and have the worst third sector; because he did not finish it.

[SiLo]

The redbull crashed because the driver was out of control from the first turn. That was an easy pole even after the lock up in the last corner. And Jolyon Palmer made that assessment. Going back on throttle with less agression would have kept max going down the straight for pole.

He screwed up too much in the final corner to salvage that lap, the mistake that cost him pole was going way too deep onto the dirty part of the track.

Hitting the wall just compounded it.

[TNTHead]

Much of the talk is about who messed up where, who's to blame for this, and that. Could we please focus more on the non-emotional side of F1? Like what is the expected pace for RB vs. Merc etc.

I am very curious who will have the faster car next race. I expect Honda/RB to go extreme on engine settings and as minimum DF as possible without sacrifising too much in the corners and on tyre deg. On top of that they may have found something in the floor to reduce drag.

[Jambier]

I am very curious who will have the faster car next race. I expect Honda/RB to go extreme on engine settings and as minimum DF as possible without sacrifising too much in the corners and on tyre deg. O

I expect the same for Honda / RB

But with no success, Mercedes will have extreme engine settings, more DF, better tyre life, and will just make a parade to celebrate both championship.

I think this race will not be interesing, for me RB/Max already lost their chance for 2021, let's focus on 2022

[Gillian]

Just got a downvote because I said to a member it’s not a fans only tread. Pathetic, and happens a lot in the redbull team thread, anything that doesn’t hail the greatness of the team of driver is met with downvotes.

I upvoted you as well because indeed a healthy discussion would be welcome.

However some people only post here if they can post something negative and reiterate said negativity over and over again, ignoring all arguments given to debunk it. That's not a healthy discussion.

[NathanOlder]

Not sure where to ask this as the Saudi thread is locked. But how come RedBull lose so much speed to Mercedes on the straights in the race (Lewis was gaining huge chunks in the race in S2 and S3, yet in qualy the RedBull was faster in S2, and was looking quicker in S3 also until Max binned it).

Usually you would say that RedBull have a better qualy mode, but obviously thats not allowed now.

Any thoughts ?

[DChemTech]

Not sure where to ask this as the Saudi thread is locked. But how come RedBull lose so much speed to Mercedes on the straights in the race (Lewis was gaining huge chunks in the race in S2 and S3, yet in qualy the RedBull was faster in S2, and was looking quicker in S3 also until Max binned it).

Usually you would say that RedBull have a better qualy mode, but obviously thats not allowed now.

Any thoughts ?

I guess it's just 'easier' to be exceptional over a single lap than over a whole race distance. Maybe he got the softs to work a bit better, Max had no traffic (Lewis had a bit, albeit at mostly inconsequential locations). And clearly, he took every available millimeter on the track (until he took a few that were unavailable).

[nimoraca]

Much of the talk is about who messed up where, who's to blame for this, and that. Could we please focus more on the non-emotional side of F1? Like what is the expected pace for RB vs. Merc etc.

I am very curious who will have the faster car next race. I expect Honda/RB to go extreme on engine settings and as minimum DF as possible without sacrifising too much in the corners and on tyre deg. On top of that they may have found something in the floor to reduce drag.

I think that is what they always do, going for the highest top speed without sacrificing to much speed in the corners, meaning, finding the perfect balance for the specific track to obtain the best lap time. Maybe you are suggesting that they might want to sacrifice some lap time in order to gain top speed, which might be possible. In that case they would need to be absolutely sure that they would still take the pole.

[bosyber]

With Mercedes having more straightline speed (even if Red Bull tried to do the same, hard to see them do better at the moment, though last year they did manage at times, didn't they?), not having pole seems like a losing proposition absent a super start and/or waiting for Mercedes/Hamilton to make an error.

[rogazilla]

This is the part where I think Merc's new "ICE" really bothered me with which I asked in the Merc engine thread. From Quali point of view, you top off the battery and you run your 1 lap and it doesn't matter that you deploy every last bit of it for that 1 lap and I think Honda does that as well as Merc. In the race though, you have to recharge, there is a balance for the deployment strategy. It seems this deployment strategy in the race is where Merc has a huge advantage with right now. This is of course ignoring AERO changes. Though the pace Hamilton demostrated in Brasil specific, it didn't look like he needed to slow down to recharge (this is of course may just be the TV broadcast would focus only during action or overtaking to create such illusion). Since this is not really the topic for the above discussion... back to RBR, this is where I think Honda is saying that a new ICE itself wouldn't result in a big gain the way Merc's does.

[Alexf1]

I can see fron the side by side comparison incl. speed that in quali in the second half of a straight the RB is making up the speed deficit it incurred to Merc in the first half of a straight. In the race it has a slower 1st and 2nd part of a straight compared to Merc. Seems like Merc has turned its early season ERS deficit into an advantage.

[SmallSoldier]

Not sure where to ask this as the Saudi thread is locked. But how come RedBull lose so much speed to Mercedes on the straights in the race (Lewis was gaining huge chunks in the race in S2 and S3, yet in qualy the RedBull was faster in S2, and was looking quicker in S3 also until Max binned it).

Usually you would say that RedBull have a better qualy mode, but obviously thats not allowed now.

Any thoughts ?

It’s the tow… Max didn’t had a tow and Lewis was in within 2 seconds the whole time… The dirty air made Lewis lose time in S1 following so close (therefore Max increasing the gap by a few tenths) and then when the speed / straight sections came around, Hamilton benefited from the tow to close the gap again… The tow also allowed Lewis to potentially recharge more battery since he didn’t need to deploy as much, therefore in certain laps he would use that extra amount of battery charge and close even further.

[basti313]

...... It seems this deployment strategy in the race is where Merc has a huge advantage with right now. .......... Though the pace Hamilton demostrated in Brasil specific, it didn't look like he needed to slow down to recharge (this is of course may just be the TV broadcast would focus only during action or overtaking to create such illusion). Since this is not really the topic for the above discussion... back to RBR, this is where I think Honda is saying that a new ICE itself wouldn't result in a big gain the way Merc's does.

No, it is really the ICE.
The MGU-K is only a small portion related to the ICE power. So if they just get some 5% more ICE power, which is always available, they save a lot of electrical energy on all the small acceleration phases during the lap. Brazil actually has a lot of them. So they can completely change the deployment strategy more to the main straight without sacrificing time on the small acceleration phases.

[TNTHead]

Not sure where to ask this as the Saudi thread is locked. But how come RedBull lose so much speed to Mercedes on the straights in the race (Lewis was gaining huge chunks in the race in S2 and S3, yet in qualy the RedBull was faster in S2, and was looking quicker in S3 also until Max binned it).

Usually you would say that RedBull have a better qualy mode, but obviously thats not allowed now.

Any thoughts ?

It’s the tow… Max didn’t had a tow and Lewis was in within 2 seconds the whole time… The dirty air made Lewis lose time in S1 following so close (therefore Max increasing the gap by a few tenths) and then when the speed / straight sections came around, Hamilton benefited from the tow to close the gap again… The tow also allowed Lewis to potentially recharge more battery since he didn’t need to deploy as much, therefore in certain laps he would use that extra amount of battery charge and close even further.

I suspect it is a combination of both: in qualy VER had his soft tyres probably more in the right temperature windows leading to a better exit corner traction. In the race VER could not copy the situation HAM had because his tyres were gone so no tow benefits.

If it is about deployment, then efficiency and mapping is back on the table, isn't it? I don't know about fuel economy but could it be that the Mercs because of higher total fuel efficiency are underfuelled in race trim? In France it was quite clear that in the first half of the race the Mercs were better (less fuel?), in the second half of the race the RB came back on top (this effect may be blurred by tyre advantage).

[Jolle]

Not sure where to ask this as the Saudi thread is locked. But how come RedBull lose so much speed to Mercedes on the straights in the race (Lewis was gaining huge chunks in the race in S2 and S3, yet in qualy the RedBull was faster in S2, and was looking quicker in S3 also until Max binned it).

Usually you would say that RedBull have a better qualy mode, but obviously thats not allowed now.

Any thoughts ?

Good chance it has to do with the amount of drag that is the trade-off of the extreme rake setup. During FP and in Q they can run with an open DRS to reduce that effect a bit.
But ever since I can remember, even when everyone had about the same amount of power (during the last V8 years) their philosophy was more balanced towards more downforce vs less drag.

During the last GP both were what kept Hamilton behind for so long. Verstappen was good enough trough the twisty bit that Hamilton couldn’t get close enough or overcome the dirty air (drivers were talking about sudden losses of DF because of that).
Good chance if Mercedes ran a bit more DF (with the added drag), they would have been closer at the DRS points to mount an overtake more easy.