2023 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen commented on how the car was to drive after the damage:

Given the damage to his RB19, third place is still quite an achievement for Verstappen, whose race from that point on was far from ideal. " The car jumped around a lot and skidded in some weird places," explained the two-time world champion. "I have to look at the data to know exactly how much damage was done."

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/199986/v ... -bull.html


He should be much stronger tomorrow. I also think that the upgrades are working very well when we consider the reported .75 s worth of damage, and the fact that Red Bull did the sprint on used mediums, compared to new mediums for the Ferrari.

[Wouter]

Max arrived this morning early. Lets hope he doesn't get a damaged car again.

[vorticism]

Surprised that the floor edge seemed to survive unscathed.

[chrisc90]

Thats probably the 300k damage payment spent fixing that hole.

[Juzh]

I looked at cheko and max's onboard chasing leclerc. Perez's car is very stable on corner exit, Verstappen meanwhile slides everywhere almost all the time, so im quite positive this supposedly minor damage had a substantial effect on overall performance and particularly when coming on power.

[Sieper]

His rear tires were also heavily worn, Checo, not so much.

Can be glad he finished with that damage.

[TNTHead]

Perez doing really well this season, nice to see.

My take on today is that the RB19 is the first RB car in years thats able to setup to the liking of different driving styles. Otherwise you would expect again a bigger race pace difference between the two. May because the car is underweight now and with the ballast you can make it a balanced car for Verstappen and Perez.

Although for today it also could mean that Perze had a slightly better setup (a bit more downforce) than Verstappen.

[Sieper]

I think so, in these 1 FP weekends it is a bit of a gamble. Max seemed quite relieved.

[organic]

Impressed by Perez, very strong weekend from everyone

Perez yet to win a race without Max having significant bad luck however..

[AR3-GP]

Impressed by Perez, very strong weekend from everyone

Perez yet to win a race without Max having significant bad luck however..

I think the important/promising thing for RB isn't really whether or not Perez is winning races. Its whether or not he's driving the car anywhere near what it's capable of as Max tends to do.

Some of his previous seasons really compromised the team. In 2021 they lost the WCC. In 2022 they missed the chance to finish 1-2 in the WDC.

If he manages to keep up this form, then I'd say RB have the best pairing on the grid and they'll continue to terrorize the competition for years to come

[chrisc90]

I dont think it was significant bad luck. I think it was just unfortunate and a minor slip up from the pitwall/base who should have known that the AT would have needed lifting. So be it, thats racing. I think Perez would have been all over the back of Max today, he caught up in the 1st stint on mediums. Does anyone know if they ran differing setups?

[PlatinumZealot]

On a normal day Max would have caught and passed Perez. What we saw today was Perez controlling the pace and responding to every push from Max. The unlucky safety didn't take away from the fact the Checo was closing in on him and forced his hand to pit early. And after that Max didn't seem to close in any at all. Could be a good sign for the championship. It will be so impressive if Checo can keep this up on more normal tracks.

[TNTHead]

I dont think it was significant bad luck. I think it was just unfortunate and a minor slip up from the pitwall/base who should have known that the AT would have needed lifting. So be it, thats racing. I think Perez would have been all over the back of Max today, he caught up in the 1st stint on mediums. Does anyone know if they ran differing setups?

I suspect it because they showed during the race a map of the circuit where Perez was faster and where Verstappen was faster. It was clear that Verstappen was faster on the straights and Perez in the corners and the twisty sections.

[LM10]

Impressed by Perez, very strong weekend from everyone

Perez yet to win a race without Max having significant bad luck however..

He would have not been in that position, if Perez had not pushed him to an early pit stop.

[Gillian]

Impressed by Perez, very strong weekend from everyone

Perez yet to win a race without Max having significant bad luck however..

He would have not been in that position, if Perez had not pushed him to an early pit stop.

Very true. I'm always very critical of Perez because there seems to be some kind of unwarranted hype around him but this is the first race where I was genuinely impressed. Unlike his Monaco win last year (Verstappen was clearly faster, but Monaco...), Perez was on it the entire race. He was consistently fast, no silly errors, etc. Very well done.