2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[basti313]

Exactly. In the first part of the season, the balance as to who seemed to have the better car switched nearly per-race. After catching a break with the tire change, the balance shifted towards Mercedes - visible from race-pace (especially the last few races - if Max was ahead, he could not drive away. If Lewis was, he could), but also reflected in Max's ever more aggressive (sometimes overly so) driving style. He very well realised that he would not be able to stay ahead otherwise. He had to extract every little bit of performance from the car to stay ahead, and he needed to take risks.

Of course there is this long standing discussion about "can a driver drive better than the car allows" (as was e.g. said of Alonso in the past), or is the car that wins, by definition, the fastest car? I think the answer to both is no. Of course in a very pragmatic sense, the driver can never drive better than the car allows - but performance is much harder to extract from some cars than from others. And that is where drivers can excel; extracting the most performance from a car, especially one that's hard to perform well in. And this is what Max did exceptionally this year - he got more out of his car than Lewis did. Like e.g. Schumacher did in comparison the the elder Verstappen or initially poor Ferraris, or like Alonso did in several seasons.

I think that is well illustrated from e.g. qualifying data. The qualifying gap between Max and Checo is much larger, both in position and time-gap, than between Lewis and Bottas. Bottas was on the podium much more than Perez, too - again much bigger teammate gap at RB than MB. And there's a reason statistical analysis assigns such a high score to Max compared to all other drivers this year. Sure, I understand some LH fans are angry and find the whole thing undeserved, but the numbers don't agree. Sure, Max went over the line sometimes, but that happens when you need to drive exceptionally continuously to have a shot at victory, and all in all, he harmed his own scorechart with that more than anything else. In the end, that does not take away from what he managed this year - an exceptional drive that squeezed every little bit of performance from the car, which was absolutely championship worthy.

Agreed, although you make the implicit assumption that Bottas and Perez are comparable performance indicators. This is unknown because they didn't drive in the same car in a season in the past. Actually I would suggest that Bottas is better in qualifying and Perez is better in race pace. Although the appraised tyre management of Perez was (compared to VER) not obviously clear. So comparing VER to HAM via teams mates is quite difficult if not impossible.

Yes, that is indeed an implicit assumption that can be questioned. Overall, I think they are similar tier although I would, on the past few seasons, perhaps rate Perez a bit higher. He dissapointed in that sense this year. But perhaps the RB is just harder to extract performance from than the MB

I do not think this is the case.
We have a similar situation as with Schumacher or Alonso in the past. The cars were basically undrivable for anyone else because they were tuned to the tip so that these top drivers could extract everything. We see the same at RedBull and Merc today.
So the pace difference is not real.

[diffuser]

Max Verstappen has the record for most podiums in a season, and most likely would have been a perfect score if it weren't for being taken out by Pirelli and Mercedes! Definitely was a champions drive this year. No one deserved it more and the most popular driver won, so it was a win for F1!

BTW, keep it on topic, praise/defend Mercedes and their drivers in the other team thread.

In your opinion. I mean he drove well enough. So did Hamilton and Sainz.


BTW, there is always a reason why things come to an end. That's the whole reason why stuff like that is rare, "--- happens".

[DChemTech]

I do not think this is the case.
We have a similar situation as with Schumacher or Alonso in the past. The cars were basically undrivable for anyone else because they were tuned to the tip so that these top drivers could extract everything. We see the same at RedBull and Merc today.
So the pace difference is not real.

[Edit; apologies, I misinterpreted your post - I will edit accordingly]
Yes, the situation is the same as with Schumacher and Alonso in the past, but that was exactly what I meant to say. The exceptionalism of the performance is that they managed to get much more out of a difficult-to-drive car than would be expected from nearly every other driver; just like in those cases, RB was unlikely to be a championship contender, were it not for Max's performance. To a certain extend, the same is true for MB, but it seems less so (as Bottas performed better overall than Perez on every front - it seems the MB is easier to drive, or Bottas is much closer a driver to Hamilton, than Perez is to Verstappen). So, what I tried to argue is that the MB was the better car in that it was more forgiving/easier to perform in for the average driver, and as such the notion that Max won this year was more due to the skill level he showed, than to the car (which is supported by the statistical analysis posted a few pages back) - and not, as some argued, because "he simply had a better car".

[basti313]

I do not think this is the case.
We have a similar situation as with Schumacher or Alonso in the past. The cars were basically undrivable for anyone else because they were tuned to the tip so that these top drivers could extract everything. We see the same at RedBull and Merc today.
So the pace difference is not real.

I disagree. Over the past years, the RB has been a substantially more difficult car. Look at how Albon and Gasly (who showed serious pace this year) compared with respect to Max. This year, the situation is a bit better, but the car is still a continuation of the same philosophy, and Perez did not come close to Max.

Was it other than "earlier seasons with exceptional drives"? I don't think so. Those cars were also hard to drive because they were tuned to one driver, yes, but similar to RB this year, it was not completely undrivable for others. For example:

Benetton 1994 (16 races): Car 1: 8x 1st, 2x 2nd. Car 2: 2x 3th, otherwise top 10 if not retired. (92 vs 11 points)
Benetton 1995 (17 races): Car 1: 9x 1st, 1x 2nd, 1x 3th. Car 2: 2x 1st, 1x 3th, 1x 2nd, otherwise top 10 if not retired. (102 vs 45 points)
Ferrari 1997 (17 races): Car 1: 5 wins, 3x 2nd. Car 2: 1x 2nd, 4x 3th. (78 vs 24 points)
Ferrari 1998 (17 races): Car 1: 6 wins, 2x 2nd, 3x 3th. Car 2: 3x 2nd, 5x 3th. (86 vs 47 points)

Renault 2005 (19 races): Car 1: 8x 1st, 5x 2nd, 3x 3th. Car 2: 1x 1st, 1x 3nd, 1x 3th, otherwise nearly all top 10 if not retired. (133 vs 58 points)
Renault 2006 (18 races): Car 1: 7x 1st, 7x 2nd. Car 2: 1x 1st, 4x 3th, otherwise top 10 if not retired. (134 vs 72 points)
Ferrari 2010 (19 races): Car 1: 5x 1st, 2x 2nd, 3x 3th. Car 2: 2x 2nd, 3x 3th. (252 vs 144 points)
Ferrari 2012 (20 races): Car 1: 3x 1st, 5x 2nd, 5x 3th. Car 2: 1x 2nd, 1x 3th, (278 vs 122 points)
Red bull 2021 (22 races): Car 1: 10x 1st, 8x 2nd. Car 2: 1x 1st, 4x 3th, otherwise mostly top 10 finishes. (395.5 vs. 190 points).

Both in podium/non-podium performance and point tally (with car #2 scoring < 50% of #1) RB2021 was comparable with the other examples, except Benetton 1994 (all rookie teammates, frequent changes) and Ferrari 2012 (very dynamic season with many challengers). So overall, I do think Max's drive this year does fit in the line of exceptional performances in cars that were, in typical drivers hands, unlikely to win. I'm not saying RB had a bad car, that was clearly not the case, nor was it true for the above situations. They were just all cars that were unlikely to be the best had another driver taken the wheel. And again, this is also highlighted by the statistical analysis a few pages back, assigning a 132% score to Max, and 107% lewis.

Of course, you are fully entitled to another opinion. But I think the numbers point at Max owing the win more to his driving than to the car this year.

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

[DChemTech]

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

I misinterpreted your previous post, sorry, I edited my reply accordingly.
I don't want to make this a Lewis vs. Max thing either; I think Lewis drove very well this season and was a worthy contender. My post was targeted more at the crowd that downplays Max's performance by shouting "well he just had a better car", which I do not think is true. Sure, the car was good in his hands because it was set up according to his driving style, but still one has to consistently extract that performance - which, as exemplified by the performance of the teammate, was not easy to do. Which is why I think Max is a deserving champion that won on performance, not on having the better car overall.

[basti313]

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

I misinterpreted your previous post, sorry, I edited my reply accordingly.
I don't want to make this a Lewis vs. Max thing either; I think Lewis drove very well this season and was a worthy contender. My post was targeted more at the crowd that downplays Max's performance by shouting "well he just had a better car", which I do not think is true. Sure, the car was good in his hands because it was set up according to his driving style, but still one has to consistently extract that performance - which, as exemplified by the performance of the teammate, was not easy to do. Which is why I think Max is a deserving champion that won on performance, not on having the better car overall.

Yes, I agree. The Merc was the car to have this season but Merc threw it away with many bad strategy calls, pushing wrong buttons or simply not being there when it counted.
But as said....this comparison with the Nr2 does simply not have any influence on the point who deserves it. There is a completely different reason behind than the performance of the Nr1 driver.

And yes, I also agree that the Merc was in past seasons much easier to drive for everyone. They were so far ahead that they could make it comfy for both drivers and comfy in general. I think this is one of the backgrounds of the Stone upgrade, they concentrated the car on Ham and suddenly had a situation like at RedBull over years, where the Nr2 is far off the pace.

[diffuser]

Sorry, I do not want to go into Max vs. Lewis again.

This year is not 100% comparable to the Shu and Alo seasons as at this time the field was mostly closer. Look at just the last race...Q3 performances how far off? 0.7 or 0.8 sec if we see that Max aborted?
This is an unnaturally high difference and in many of your quoted years the Nr. 2 would not have scored many points when being that far off the pace. In 1997 a 0.8sec difference means you start out of the top 10.
This shows that the difference is just unnatural. No matter how excellent Lewis or Max are (without discussing again who is more excellent) I think there is something clearly down to the car setup that kills the Nr2 drivers.

By the way: If we compare today to the past...with a performance of Merc in the first half of the season and the many come backs slicing through the field (Imola, Monza, Stone, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil) with ease, the WDC would have looked much clearer for Ver in a close season. The battle in the end was just a reason of no competition for the two.

I misinterpreted your previous post, sorry, I edited my reply accordingly.
I don't want to make this a Lewis vs. Max thing either; I think Lewis drove very well this season and was a worthy contender. My post was targeted more at the crowd that downplays Max's performance by shouting "well he just had a better car", which I do not think is true. Sure, the car was good in his hands because it was set up according to his driving style, but still one has to consistently extract that performance - which, as exemplified by the performance of the teammate, was not easy to do. Which is why I think Max is a deserving champion that won on performance, not on having the better car overall.

Yes, I agree. The Merc was the car to have this season but Merc threw it away with many bad strategy calls, pushing wrong buttons or simply not being there when it counted.
But as said....this comparison with the Nr2 does simply not have any influence on the point who deserves it. There is a completely different reason behind than the performance of the Nr1 driver.

And yes, I also agree that the Merc was in past seasons much easier to drive for everyone. They were so far ahead that they could make it comfy for both drivers and comfy in general. I think this is one of the backgrounds of the Stone upgrade, they concentrated the car on Ham and suddenly had a situation like at RedBull over years, where the Nr2 is far off the pace.

I don't agree with cars being developed to a drivers driving style. Cars are developed in a wind tunnel. That is brought to the track, then the driver and the track performance/setup guys figure out how to make it work. Obviously there is feedback from them. It is the setup guys that try to tailor the car to what the driver can do.

[basti313]

I misinterpreted your previous post, sorry, I edited my reply accordingly.
I don't want to make this a Lewis vs. Max thing either; I think Lewis drove very well this season and was a worthy contender. My post was targeted more at the crowd that downplays Max's performance by shouting "well he just had a better car", which I do not think is true. Sure, the car was good in his hands because it was set up according to his driving style, but still one has to consistently extract that performance - which, as exemplified by the performance of the teammate, was not easy to do. Which is why I think Max is a deserving champion that won on performance, not on having the better car overall.

Yes, I agree. The Merc was the car to have this season but Merc threw it away with many bad strategy calls, pushing wrong buttons or simply not being there when it counted.
But as said....this comparison with the Nr2 does simply not have any influence on the point who deserves it. There is a completely different reason behind than the performance of the Nr1 driver.

And yes, I also agree that the Merc was in past seasons much easier to drive for everyone. They were so far ahead that they could make it comfy for both drivers and comfy in general. I think this is one of the backgrounds of the Stone upgrade, they concentrated the car on Ham and suddenly had a situation like at RedBull over years, where the Nr2 is far off the pace.

I don't agree with cars being developed to a drivers driving style. Cars are developed in a wind tunnel. That is brought to the track, then the driver and the track performance/setup guys figure out how to make it work. Obviously there is feedback from them. It is the setup guys that try to tailor the car to what the driver can do.

I did not say that the reason is in the aero. Of course this is setup related and every aero upgrade changes this.
Once the Nr2 is not working on his setup but test driving setups for Nr1 on Fridays....what we have clearly seen at RB...the Nr2 is far off.

[aral]

Could we please get back on topic which is specifically the RBR Team. There is an aero thread where the differences with Merc etc can be discussed.

[adrianjordan]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun ... ilton/amp/

Are the papers that hungry for news already??

I don't for a second believe Max would walk away just over an engineer leaving. I certainly hope he doesn't, like him or loath him, he's certainly one of the biggest characters in the sport and undoubtedly fast!!

[seense]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun ... ilton/amp/

Are the papers that hungry for news already??

I don't for a second believe Max would walk away just over an engineer leaving. I certainly hope he doesn't, like him or loath him, he's certainly one of the biggest characters in the sport and undoubtedly fast!!

He said that during a dutch interview yes, but what strikes me most is the title of that article.

[Big Tea]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun ... ilton/amp/

Are the papers that hungry for news already??

I don't for a second believe Max would walk away just over an engineer leaving. I certainly hope he doesn't, like him or loath him, he's certainly one of the biggest characters in the sport and undoubtedly fast!!

He said that during a dutch interview yes, but what strikes me most is the title of that article.

Its the SUN. Don't believe anything in that, even the date on page one.

[Wouter]

Finally, without a geoblock, Max and Helmut Marko on Servus TV last monday. Choose your own language.

[mstar]

Max did not win a race he was not supposed to.

Zandvoort. He couldn't pull away from Lewis. Austin, they won it on strategy not on the average pace. Max said so himself that they shouldnt have won these two races.
In mexico yes Max had clearly the fastest car. The other win was abu dahbi where Mercedes again had the faster car.

So i dont get you. It's quite obvious Merc had the better car from mid season onwards.

Exactly. In the first part of the season, the balance as to who seemed to have the better car switched nearly per-race. After catching a break with the tire change, the balance shifted towards Mercedes - visible from race-pace (especially the last few races - if Max was ahead, he could not drive away. If Lewis was, he could), but also reflected in Max's ever more aggressive (sometimes overly so) driving style. He very well realised that he would not be able to stay ahead otherwise. He had to extract every little bit of performance from the car to stay ahead, and he needed to take risks.

Of course there is this long standing discussion about "can a driver drive better than the car allows" (as was e.g. said of Alonso in the past), or is the car that wins, by definition, the fastest car? I think the answer to both is no. Of course in a very pragmatic sense, the driver can never drive better than the car allows - but performance is much harder to extract from some cars than from others. And that is where drivers can excel; extracting the most performance from a car, especially one that's hard to perform well in. And this is what Max did exceptionally this year - he got more out of his car than Lewis did. Like e.g. Schumacher did in comparison the the elder Verstappen or initially poor Ferraris, or like Alonso did in several seasons.

I think that is well illustrated from e.g. qualifying data. The qualifying gap between Max and Checo is much larger, both in position and time-gap, than between Lewis and Bottas. Bottas was on the podium much more than Perez, too - again much bigger teammate gap at RB than MB. And there's a reason statistical analysis assigns such a high score to Max compared to all other drivers this year. Sure, I understand some LH fans are angry and find the whole thing undeserved, but the numbers don't agree. Sure, Max went over the line sometimes, but that happens when you need to drive exceptionally continuously to have a shot at victory, and all in all, he harmed his own scorechart with that more than anything else. In the end, that does not take away from what he managed this year - an exceptional drive that squeezed every little bit of performance from the car, which was absolutely championship worthy.

We all agree both worthy champions. No doubt whoever won i have no issue with. But saying only Max squeezed performance from the car is a discredit to Lewis. There was times the car wasn't good and he did manage to drag the car forward too.

Don't compare a new driver like perez into the RB which is tailored towards max. We cant really compare max to perez as an accurate measuring stick.

[diffuser]

Yes, I agree. The Merc was the car to have this season but Merc threw it away with many bad strategy calls, pushing wrong buttons or simply not being there when it counted.
But as said....this comparison with the Nr2 does simply not have any influence on the point who deserves it. There is a completely different reason behind than the performance of the Nr1 driver.

And yes, I also agree that the Merc was in past seasons much easier to drive for everyone. They were so far ahead that they could make it comfy for both drivers and comfy in general. I think this is one of the backgrounds of the Stone upgrade, they concentrated the car on Ham and suddenly had a situation like at RedBull over years, where the Nr2 is far off the pace.

I don't agree with cars being developed to a drivers driving style. Cars are developed in a wind tunnel. That is brought to the track, then the driver and the track performance/setup guys figure out how to make it work. Obviously there is feedback from them. It is the setup guys that try to tailor the car to what the driver can do.

I did not say that the reason is in the aero. Of course this is setup related and every aero upgrade changes this.
Once the Nr2 is not working on his setup but test driving setups for Nr1 on Fridays....what we have clearly seen at RB...the Nr2 is far off.

Sorry if I'm obtuse but was is Nr1 and Nr2 ?