2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[TNTHead]

Alonso is my favorite driver, but his career is in the past, he is still great, and the only shot he have is a good Alpine to win some races.

He will stay at Alpine until retirement I think, let's hope he grabs some more victories, but for title he is not in the right team.

Alonso and Red Bull could have been a reality in the past, but not the future, sad, because it would have been a very good setup!

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I totally agree with every word!

Same!

Got great memories of Alonso in 05/06, then 07 was painful too watch (I like both Hamilton and Alonso) and then he had brilliant races until '14, just couldn't get that WDC again due to circumstances.

He's shown some of that brilliance this year but over the year he's not back to that old level. To be expected I guess.

Maybe the question is if Alonso right now is better than Perez? I think his appreciation towards Verstappen is genuine. Maybe it could work? I know this is probably not going to happen but just thinking about it, the greatest strength of Alonso is his adaptability and staying out of trouble. Isn't that what Red Bull (allegedly) needs? If indeed the Red Bull is skewed towards the needs of Verstappen, would Alonso not be able to adapt to that, better than Perez and those before him? And isn't the ability to stay out of trouble and pickup the points where Verstappen drops them the most important thing Red Bull wants?

VER regards ALO also highly, and may be he even could learn some things from him. But because of his age I consider it extremely unlikely.

[Big Tea]

Speaking of alonso, just realised if Lewis pulls off a result this weekend he will have 4 times the championship that Fernando has!!

Staggering, also to think that since Lewis entered F1, Fernando never won a title again!

I wonder if Fernando lining up a possible chance at getting in the RedBull for 2023. Interesting thought. No Honda to block it either.

I think a team with Alonso and Max in would have no chance of winning a title. it takes a front man and a wing man.

I have questions about Merc next year for just this reason

Actually i am hoping that Russel don't end up being a wing man, Bottas was a wing man at the start, now i don't know what he is anymore. Honestly hoping Russel defeating Lewis or driving real well to put some challenge and we get to see a nail-biting season. since both are from same country so there wont be chance of media Bias.

It looks like Ferrari will be well in the mix next year, and they also have a 'two top drivers' team, so if RBR keep to the prime and backup as they are not going after constructors points, it could pay dividend at the end of the year while Merc and Ferrari squabble

[rogazilla]

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.

This is probably true for Brazil. Does not explain for SA though? It is not that the top speed was that different in quali between the 2 teams? Then it really comes down to deployment. They key in this formula has always been for me at least the balance between ICE power and recovery. What we have to assume is that Merc is able to increase x% of ICE power but still recover enough energy to charge the battery to lap around each lap at a high level but if spec is locked and early in the season, Merc had issue with ERS recovery? This all confuses me.

What do you mean with recovery here?
You would never use the H to "recover" in a way it hurts the ICE, you can only use some spare energy. Compromising ICE power to the H is just nonsense as you translate heat into movement, then into electrical energy, then back into movement...highly inefficient.
The recovery is done when braking or under lift and coast. If Merc had issues with it, is is mainly down to the battery and/or K.
I do not think there is a difference, the turbo and geometry are fairly similar between Honda and Merc. Little sizing differences, but nothing special. The difference is the ICE power.

This has been discussed a lot from different pu threads. How much power can you get out of ICE with the limited fuel flow? The one loop that’s allowed to have unlimited flow is between ES and H. K and es is limited per lap. That is the balance this pu has to have to not have the clipping that Honda suffered last year when they banned the extra recovery mode Honda had AFTER the Australia non-race. So you are saying that merc ice is so efficient that it produces all the power that you only need little bit of recovery from K and not much from H?

[west52keep64]

Honda's head of power unit development Asaki-san said a while ago that they would save the best for the last race(s).
This can only be achieved if the car is optimal. Everything has to be right.
Over the past few weekends with Gasly and Yuki, it was already apparent how good the Honda PU is.
Their car is with the right setup already optimal , so they were able to show everyone the full potential of the Honda PU.
RBR indicates in this Tweet without saying anything that this will now also be the case with RBR.
This cargo box is not from Jeddah. Those from Jeddah were already at the track on Monday.

Could you share your source for this information? Or is it all just speculation?

[Wouter]

........

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Could you share your source for this information? Or is it all just speculation?

This is no speculation. As I said this information comes from Asaki-san/Honda, RBR and AlphaTauri.

[Wouter]

The last dance, RBR and Honda Racing F1 together.

[Juzh]

This is probably true for Brazil. Does not explain for SA though? It is not that the top speed was that different in quali between the 2 teams? Then it really comes down to deployment. They key in this formula has always been for me at least the balance between ICE power and recovery. What we have to assume is that Merc is able to increase x% of ICE power but still recover enough energy to charge the battery to lap around each lap at a high level but if spec is locked and early in the season, Merc had issue with ERS recovery? This all confuses me.

It's most likely a combination of little things that in the end compound themselves into a larger and meaningful advantage. Those include slightly more power, slightly less drag, slightly better energy recovery by whatever means , running in slipstream (as pointed out by max)...

Now take all these and reverse them (red bull situation), obviously you will struggle on an ~80% full throttle track on race distance. In qualifying you can dump all battery in 1 lap and that seemed to help red bull in Q3, but they had to face reality on sunday.

[Bill]

Honda has ers deployment advantage over merc over season until Brazil .max was 0.5 tenth quicker than lewis in mexico,in brazil in brazil he was 0.3 to 0.5 tenth slower thats a swing of 0.7 to 1 secound .Are merc gains legal maybe the illusion of champiship battle to the bitter end is more important than sporting intergriety.Masi is warning Max if he crash into lewis wil have points deducted .i would have liked to have seen lewis points reduced for silverstone incidents

[Juzh]

Honda has ers deployment advantage over merc over season until Brazil .max was 0.5 tenth quicker than lewis in mexico,in brazil in brazil he was 0.3 to 0.5 tenth slower thats a swing of 0.7 to 1 secound

There was a stat floating around red bull lost a bit more on straights in mexico than in brazil (plausible from what i've seen), but had more than enough time to claw it back and then some in second and third sector.

[adrianjordan]

Honda has ers deployment advantage over merc over season until Brazil .max was 0.5 tenth quicker than lewis in mexico,in brazil in brazil he was 0.3 to 0.5 tenth slower thats a swing of 0.7 to 1 secound .Are merc gains legal maybe the illusion of champiship battle to the bitter end is more important than sporting intergriety.Masi is warning Max if he crash into lewis wil have points deducted .i would have liked to have seen lewis points reduced for silverstone incidents

If you're going to take points away for Silverstone then you also have to for Monza.

Both were racing incidents where one driver was more to blame than the other.

Max has been pushing the limits this year, as he is entitled do and that's why some fans love him so much, but he has slipped over them a few times and gotten away with it. I'm sure he'll want to have a clean race and win this on track, just as all us true fans want.

[Gillian]

The add has been removed after RB requested it:

https://racingnews365.com/sky-sports-re ... -complaint

Some nice words from Coulthard about Verstappen:

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/73196 ... e-penalty/

[JordanMugen]

I think a team with Alonso and Max in would have no chance of winning a title. it takes a front man and a wing man.

I have questions about Merc next year for just this reason

Strongly disagree. You always field the best two drivers you can find. Always.

Recall how much better (relative to the car pace) Red Bull were doing with Ricciardo + Verstappen. Or how well Ferrari are doing with Leclerc + Sainz. Or Mercedes with Rosberg + Hamilton (Rosberg with more wins in one season than Bottas in five!!!). It's twice the opportunity to pick up wins, podiums and indeed championships.

There is no longer a question of "will the second car be up there this week?", since (almost always) both cars are up there and if one does falter, then the other one is up there!

[Jolle]

I think a team with Alonso and Max in would have no chance of winning a title. it takes a front man and a wing man.

I have questions about Merc next year for just this reason

Strongly disagree. You always field the best two drivers you can find. Always.

Recall how much better (relative to the car pace) Red Bull were doing with Ricciardo + Verstappen. Or how well Ferrari are doing with Leclerc + Sainz. It's twice the opportunity to pick up wins, podiums and indeed championships.

Williams lost the WDC because Piquet & Mansell took valuable points away from each other. Same with McLaren with Alonso & Hamilton.
As a team, to maximise both WDC and WCC you want a pairing like Hamilton & Bottas, Senna & Berger, Schumacher & Barrichello. Boring.. but highly effective.

[Big Tea]

I think a team with Alonso and Max in would have no chance of winning a title. it takes a front man and a wing man.

I have questions about Merc next year for just this reason

Strongly disagree. You always field the best two drivers you can find. Always.

Recall how much better (relative to the car pace) Red Bull were doing with Ricciardo + Verstappen. Or how well Ferrari are doing with Leclerc + Sainz. Or Mercedes with Rosberg + Hamilton (Rosberg with more wins in one season than Bottas in five!!!). It's twice the opportunity to pick up wins, podiums and indeed championships.

There is no longer a question of "will the second car be up there this week?", since (almost always) both cars are up there and if one does falter, then the other one is up there!

And if checo had taken 2 or 3 wins instead of Max?

[Phil]

I think a team with Alonso and Max in would have no chance of winning a title. it takes a front man and a wing man.

I have questions about Merc next year for just this reason

Strongly disagree. You always field the best two drivers you can find. Always.

Recall how much better (relative to the car pace) Red Bull were doing with Ricciardo + Verstappen. Or how well Ferrari are doing with Leclerc + Sainz. Or Mercedes with Rosberg + Hamilton (Rosberg with more wins in one season than Bottas in five!!!). It's twice the opportunity to pick up wins, podiums and indeed championships.

There is no longer a question of "will the second car be up there this week?", since (almost always) both cars are up there and if one does falter, then the other one is up there!

And if checo had taken 2 or 3 wins instead of Max?

Then he’d also likely take points of Hamilton/Bottas. I’m with Jordan on this one. Better to have the two best drivers in your team (where you can control them) than having one of them driving against your team. You weaken the opposition and strengthen yours. It’s a no brainer. Two best drivers also make both your drivers better because they are pushing each other.