Red Bull RB17

[AMG.Tzan]

What if, because of cost cap Red Bull can't pay all employees as they were paying years ago and those kind of projects are something to keep employees.

It applies to all three teams. Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. The headache must have been higher for Mercedes as they had the highest spending, followed by Ferrari and then Red Bull, previous to cost cap regulations. Neither of them did mass layoffs, so that makes me wonder how they managed the situation.

I am sure each of them found respective loop holes that they have exploited to retain resources like for RB17, Mercedes Project One etc.

Project One predates the cost cap and isn't of an aero type relevant to the current F1 rule set. Mercedes also lost a good number of personnel to other teams, such as Red Bull. You might remember Horner crowing about it at the time. "Poaching" I think he called it.

Ferrari entered LMP - great way to find work for staff. And being as LMP is a particular rule set that doesn't really interact with F1's rule set, it's less likely to be able to use ideas across the two.

RB17 is a track-day special that doesn't have to abide by any rules other than decibel levels. So they can do whatever they want with it in terms of aero.

So which one is the most likely to be useful as a side-hustle to cheat the resource limitations? The latter one, that's which.

Oh God at last someone who’s seeing what I’m seeing!

I’ve been saying this exact thing for months and all I got was comments deleted! Probably Red Bull fans can’t accept the possibility of their favorite team finding a loophole…

Newey designed the Valkyrie some years ago! The Valkyrie was a project back when Aston Martin was sponsoring Red Bull in 2018-2020 iirc! So Newey designs his ultimate car, they build it and it goes on sale!

Why would the same guy design this same car again just when the 2022 rules are about to kick in? The only thing I would find plausible is because they want the Red Bull badge on it instead of the Aston Martin one!

Curiously Red Bull ends up with a floor concept way more developed than others and no porpoising as if they had been designing this car for years! More curiously Red Bull were in the midst of a championship battle in 2021 bringing upgrades right to the very last race!

How is it possible for a team under budget cap rules to have so many resources to develop 2 cars (2021,2022) simultaneously, develop a floor way more developed than anyone else on the grid and solve problems like porpoising instantly? Their only problem being weight in 2022…

Newey being the genius because he was building ground effect Indycars in the 80s isn’t an answer since these cars are way too different to be able to implement tricks from back then…

Anyway this is just speculation! If the FIA doesn’t find anything it’s all done and dusted with this argument…though I find it hard for the FIA to find any evidence now!

[Willy]

What if, because of cost cap Red Bull can't pay all employees as they were paying years ago and those kind of projects are something to keep employees.

It applies to all three teams. Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. The headache must have been higher for Mercedes as they had the highest spending, followed by Ferrari and then Red Bull, previous to cost cap regulations. Neither of them did mass layoffs, so that makes me wonder how they managed the situation.

I am sure each of them found respective loop holes that they have exploited to retain resources like for RB17, Mercedes Project One etc.

Project One predates the cost cap and isn't of an aero type relevant to the current F1 rule set. Mercedes also lost a good number of personnel to other teams, such as Red Bull. You might remember Horner crowing about it at the time. "Poaching" I think he called it.

Ferrari entered LMP - great way to find work for staff. And being as LMP is a particular rule set that doesn't really interact with F1's rule set, it's less likely to be able to use ideas across the two.

RB17 is a track-day special that doesn't have to abide by any rules other than decibel levels. So they can do whatever they want with it in terms of aero.

So which one is the most likely to be useful as a side-hustle to cheat the resource limitations? The latter one, that's which.

You go around calling RB17 work as cheating in every place you talk about without adding any further detail in the argument. Sorry to say, it's trolling at this point. Once you make an opinion in one place, which almost everyone reads, you stop and restrain. Repeating the same isn't going to change anything for others.

[Just_a_fan]

It applies to all three teams. Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. The headache must have been higher for Mercedes as they had the highest spending, followed by Ferrari and then Red Bull, previous to cost cap regulations. Neither of them did mass layoffs, so that makes me wonder how they managed the situation.

I am sure each of them found respective loop holes that they have exploited to retain resources like for RB17, Mercedes Project One etc.

Project One predates the cost cap and isn't of an aero type relevant to the current F1 rule set. Mercedes also lost a good number of personnel to other teams, such as Red Bull. You might remember Horner crowing about it at the time. "Poaching" I think he called it.

Ferrari entered LMP - great way to find work for staff. And being as LMP is a particular rule set that doesn't really interact with F1's rule set, it's less likely to be able to use ideas across the two.

RB17 is a track-day special that doesn't have to abide by any rules other than decibel levels. So they can do whatever they want with it in terms of aero.

So which one is the most likely to be useful as a side-hustle to cheat the resource limitations? The latter one, that's which.

You go around calling RB17 work as cheating in every place you talk about without adding any further detail in the argument. Sorry to say, it's trolling at this point. Once you make an opinion in one place, which almost everyone reads, you stop and restrain. Repeating the same isn't going to change anything for others.

And yet no one who dislikes the idea that the RB17 might be used as a way circumvent the rules can come up with a cogent argument showing why it can't be. My posts about the RB17 aren't intended to upset - they're intended to discuss an issue that undermines the cost cap and resource limitations: an issue that therefore undermines F1 itself. Indeed, it's considered such a problem that the FIA have even stepped in and issued a TD on the subject.

And, yes, lots of teams have side hustles and thus lots have opportunities to circumvent the rules. But only one is a project that is a ground effect special car project that isn't limited to any rule set such as LMP or other sanctioned motorsport series. That's why the RB17 is such an obvious target for suspicion and thus discussion.

[Moctecus]

Newey designed the Valkyrie some years ago! The Valkyrie was a project back when Aston Martin was sponsoring Red Bull in 2018-2020 iirc! So Newey designs his ultimate car, they build it and it goes on sale!
Why would the same guy design this same car again just when the 2022 rules are about to kick in? The only thing I would find plausible is because they want the Red Bull badge on it instead of the Aston Martin one!

It's not the same car again. The RB17 is a no-rules track-only car, aiming to deliver F1-levels of performance. The Valkyrie was conceived as a road car, which meant significant compromises had to be made. The Valkyrie AMR Pro version is track-only too, but was initially designed for the WEC Hypercar class and ditched the hybrid system, active suspension, and active aero.
The RB17 will have all the tricks. What has been confirmed are: 900 kg target weight, 1,100+ hp V8TT hybrid, active aero, active suspension, flexible skirts, and exhaust blowing.
All this isn't saying RB couldn't use the RB17 to aid the F1 team in some way. But it's clearly a different beast to the Valkyrie and serves a purpose other than trying to circumvent the F1 rules. TD45 closes off some avenues, but the engineering side isn't the only way such side-hustles help the F1 team.
Keeping people employed full-time but only having their salary count towards the budget cap for the time they are working on F1 projects is a huge benefit. Toto Wolff recently called for an end to that, saying, "the moment a person spends 10 seconds on an F1 project, they should fully count towards F1."

[Willy]

Project One predates the cost cap and isn't of an aero type relevant to the current F1 rule set. Mercedes also lost a good number of personnel to other teams, such as Red Bull. You might remember Horner crowing about it at the time. "Poaching" I think he called it.

Ferrari entered LMP - great way to find work for staff. And being as LMP is a particular rule set that doesn't really interact with F1's rule set, it's less likely to be able to use ideas across the two.

RB17 is a track-day special that doesn't have to abide by any rules other than decibel levels. So they can do whatever they want with it in terms of aero.

So which one is the most likely to be useful as a side-hustle to cheat the resource limitations? The latter one, that's which.

You go around calling RB17 work as cheating in every place you talk about without adding any further detail in the argument. Sorry to say, it's trolling at this point. Once you make an opinion in one place, which almost everyone reads, you stop and restrain. Repeating the same isn't going to change anything for others.

And yet no one who dislikes the idea that the RB17 might be used as a way circumvent the rules can come up with a cogent argument showing why it can't be. My posts about the RB17 aren't intended to upset - they're intended to discuss an issue that undermines the cost cap and resource limitations: an issue that therefore undermines F1 itself. Indeed, it's considered such a problem that the FIA have even stepped in and issued a TD on the subject.

And, yes, lots of teams have side hustles and thus lots have opportunities to circumvent the rules. But only one is a project that is a ground effect special car project that isn't limited to any rule set such as LMP or other sanctioned motorsport series. That's why the RB17 is such an obvious target for suspicion and thus discussion.

Like I said, you repeating what you already said, which is just spamming.

[chrisc90]

So is this RB17 a open wheel car? Is it a closed wheel car? Does it have a interior cabin rather than a cockpit? Is it going to have huge sidepods or is it going to be more car orientated? Is it going to have a front wing and rear wing?

At this moment in time, you might aswell compare it to the Valkyrie project as there is literally no details of what the RB17 is going to look like.

If the concept drawing at the top of the page is anything to go by it’s more mclaren P1 or Valkyrie shaped than a open wheeled race car.

[Just_a_fan]

So is this RB17 a open wheel car? Is it a closed wheel car? Does it have a interior cabin rather than a cockpit? Is it going to have huge sidepods or is it going to be more car orientated? Is it going to have a front wing and rear wing?

At this moment in time, you might aswell compare it to the Valkyrie project as there is literally no details of what the RB17 is going to look like.

If the concept drawing at the top of the page is anything to go by it’s more mclaren P1 or Valkyrie shaped than a open wheeled race car.

From the vague lines seen so far, it's looks like a Valkyrie on steroids. They've already confirmed "advanced ground effect" which is really where the possible transfer of IP is most beneficial to the F1 team. Just being able to iterate changes to a floor could be beneficial. It's the use of off-book resources to try out ideas that is the risk so far as the resource limits are concerned.

Certainly, the Valkyrie has what appears to be similar features under the floor to those brought to F1 by RBR in the RB18 and still on the RB19 (and subsequently copied by others thanks to Perez's accidents). That's an initial red flag, for example. The general ethos of the Valkyrie - ground effect tunnels - in the lead in to the current F1 rule set was, well, beneficial if only because it allowed a design team unfamiliar with tunnel cars to throw off-book resources at developing understanding (IP). Which is exactly what TD45 aims to prevent.

Ironically, although some see TD45 as an attack on RBR, it's actually beneficial to them as it prevents other teams taking this approach now. So RBR have stolen a march on the competition, which was very clever of them.

[chrisc90]

Out of interest, is there any photos of the Valkyrie floor to look at in detail?

[Willy]

Out of interest, is there any photos of the Valkyrie floor to look at in detail?

Perez hasn't driven it yet.

[Cs98]

Out of interest, is there any photos of the Valkyrie floor to look at in detail?

I haven't found any of the underfloor. The diffuser on the Valkyrie is quite different to an F1 car. Much larger, different geometry with rounder shapes. The venturi tunnels are a lot higher. These "similar features" are not apparent from any images I can gleen. Can hardly say I'm surprised by that.

[RZS10]

Yea there doesn't seem to be a single image anywhere [edit: of the full underbody or floor], none of the show cars, even 'production spec' ones late into 2022 had the final floor specification.

If you go through all videos about the car on youtube, be it hagerty, evo, top gear etc there's not a single decent shot of the underbody, the only "high res" rear shot of the car is canned footage they were provided with (it's the same across all videos) and there was probably some editing done to hide the details as every single shot of the rear of the car only has huge chunks of black compression artifacts in that area.

This is the best still shot i could grab from any of those videos:


There's one pic of the car on the road which shows this in greater detail:



And that, at least to my non-CFD eyes, kinda looks familiar


Those "kicks" (that's what i've seen them called) are the main similarity in the design...
Which came first?
Was it always supposed to look like that and were the earlier specs just hiding it?
If it was changed late into finalising the car then who was responsible for putting it on the Valkyrie?

No clue.

[Just_a_fan]

Here's Coulthard's Valkyrie (that he has sold because it broke down )



Similar "ramps" as seen on the rear of the RB18 and no other F1 car (until Perez crashed his RB18 and the world got a good look at it).

[LM10]

Damn, it’s actually crazy how similar that part of the floor/diffuser looks to that of the RB18/19.
I would have not expected it to be THIS obvious…

[Just_a_fan]

Damn, it’s actually crazy how similar that part of the floor/diffuser looks to that of the RB18/19.
I would have not expected it to be THIS obvious…

Exactly. And we were repeatedly told by certain quarters that there is no way that a road car project could be of any relevance to the F1 car.

What about a track-only "advanced ground effect" special?

[napoleon1981]

TBH the Valkyrie and the RB19 look nothing alike. Had they designed the car with dimensions similar to current regulations, it would have been a different story.