2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Paa]

I don't think anyone is prepared to change their opinion on it, so there's not much left to discuss.

Ultimately, Red Bull was lacking before the damage, even if a little more after. Perhaps could have pulled further away from Ferrari without damage, but still not going to overcome Norris. One must accept this. Mclaren could have had a front row lockout and a 1-2 here. Red Bull needs to keep pushing. I'm sure they are.

I'm not sure.
Mclaren was struggling with the soft tyre during qualy, while they were flying on the hards. Other teams were much better with the softs, while struggling with the hards
Mclaren is strong, no question. But the difference could have been exaggerated by setup.
Norris was lucky that his qualy disadvantage was nullified, and could star the hard stint from the best possible spot.

My point is that with a better qualy setup, they might have been weaker on the hard during race.

[Cs98]

https://i.imgur.com/rKdo1e0.mp4
Very clear here. Look at the cutout increase in size. Lucky the pace wasn't more affected tbh.

Ah, there we are, a video evidence found at last, congrats. However, increasing the mouse hole size and letting tiny bit more air to feed diffuser vortex can hardly be a bad thing - that's why they have those holes in the first place

Having fun today are we?

[Sieper]

I don't think anyone is prepared to change their opinion on it, so there's not much left to discuss.

Ultimately, Red Bull was lacking before the damage, even if a little more after. Perhaps could have pulled further away from Ferrari without damage, but still not going to overcome Norris. One must accept this. Mclaren could have had a front row lockout and a 1-2 here. Red Bull needs to keep pushing. I'm sure they are.

I'm not sure.
Mclaren was struggling with the soft tyre during qualy, while they were flying on the hards. Other teams were much better with the softs, while struggling with the hards
Mclaren is strong, no question. But the difference could have been exaggerated by setup.
Norris was lucky that his qualy disadvantage was nullified, and could star the hard stint from the best possible spot.

My point is that with a better qualy setup, they might have been weaker on the hard during race.

Who knows, but indeed good points. Not only was his qualify disadvantage nullified, he got 22 seconds for free with that pitstop. He ended 8 seconds up the road.

As he had the better set-up (or even car) Lando could prolong the first stint and still be fast. He could basically wait for a(ny) (V)SC. When the SC then failed to pick him up it was a done deal.

I have been saying for a long time that Lando is more then capable to bring a fast car home with very good pace. In that regard he is one of the very best already.

[Vanja #66]

Having fun today are we?

Just calling how I see it, mouse hole is very far from a critical geometrical feature and increasing its size by 50% or so can't have any major influence. Max never felt anything, live telemetry didn't show anything to the team, there was nothing substantial about it. If floor roof was damaged this much, it would have been a completely different story and he'd have felt that in T18-19 right away

[Joel709]

Having fun today are we?

Just calling how I see it, mouse hole is very far from a critical geometrical feature and increasing its size by 50% or so can't have any major influence. Max never felt anything, live telemetry didn't show anything to the team, there was nothing substantial about it. If floor roof was damaged this much, it would have been a completely different story and he'd have felt that in T18-19 right away

Apart from the fact the telemetry did show something, he after that incident he was losing atleast 2 tenths in the first corner alone. I think McLaren had the raw pace anyway but to dismiss a hole in the floor when these cars are sensitive to a single MM is just dumb

[avantman]

Having fun today are we?

Just calling how I see it, mouse hole is very far from a critical geometrical feature and increasing its size by 50% or so can't have any major influence. Max never felt anything, live telemetry didn't show anything to the team, there was nothing substantial about it. If floor roof was damaged this much, it would have been a completely different story and he'd have felt that in T18-19 right away

Apart from the fact the telemetry did show something, he after that incident he was losing atleast 2 tenths in the first corner alone. I think McLaren had the raw pace anyway but to dismiss a hole in the floor when these cars are sensitive to a single MM is just dumb

how could you argue with the aerodynamic guru, the dwarf himself? According to the ancient wisdom, that bigger hole made Max red bull even faster, otherwise he would've been smoked by the new hope of the tiffosi - Sharles LeFast. Max should've been arguably DSQed from the grand prix, as his diffuser was clearly illegal. Tainted P2. Poor Sharles got robbed of well deserved 2nd place.

[dia6olo]

The damage had little to no impact, I think some are clutching at straws with it.
Max was not all that quick, he was not exactly dropping the chasing cars long before any damage.

Ultimately I think they had an off day and didn't optimise the setup.
I also think many are thinking way to highly of McLaren who I expect to see firmly dropped back to third best after RBR's & Ferrari's upgrades.

[Wouter]

https://twitter.com/dr_obbs/status/1787458978512880059 This Tweet only shows a piece from the text below, so:

Dr Obbs @dr_obbs

I can confirm feedback from the RBR engineers that Max did indeed suffer floor damage when he struck the bollard. Sounds like the rear corner was damaged. I went back and watched the video and you can see clearly that when Max hits the bollard, the car comes down hard on the mounting base of the bollard right at the rear corner (left image). After the car drives off you see bits of carbon fiber fly off from the contact in the right image.

The rear corner is important for a few reasons. It helps to shape the inflow at the rear floor edge which feeds into the diffuser helping diffuser performance. It is also responsible for some rear edge floor load as well. So Max was probably feeling a bit of inconsistency in performance when he turned right or left. This could also have contributed to some sliding at the rear with loss of rear load in high roll. So this aligns with some of what Max was complaining about on the hard tyre with lack of grip at the rear.

I went back into the telemetry and unfortunately there was a tyre change on lap 23 after the bollard strike on lap 22. So I can't compare on the same tyre on the same stint to see any performance delta. But what I did see in the hard stint was that Max had quite some inconsistency in his driving style from one lap to the next. He's normally metronomic in his driving so this indicates he was struggling. So it's possible this damage could have certainly contributed to that inconsistency.

I wonder if @FDataAnalysis can maybe pull up some data on what Max's average race pace delta to the competition was on the medium tyre before damage compared to the hard after damage. I assume we would see some drop in delta pace to the competition.
----------------------------------

Dr Obbs @dr_obbs
This by no means diminishes anything that Lando accomplished, nor the McLaren team who is completely deserving of this win. Max got sloppy on lap 22 and it cost him damage. I do think the McLaren found a lot of pace with their upgrade. So I am looking forward to some more competitive racing from here on!

[Sieper]

The damage had little to no impact, I think some are clutching at straws with it.
Max was not all that quick, he was not exactly dropping the chasing cars long before any damage.

Ultimately I think they had an off day and didn't optimise the setup.
I also think many are thinking way to highly of McLaren who I expect to see firmly dropped back to third best after RBR's & Ferrari's upgrades.

Or he was quick, being able to build a 3 second lead on Piastri despite not having a great set-up. Ultimately that is likely also why he missed the chicane, as he was very close to a limit that was hard to determine.

Without a SC he would have likely been able to stay both ahead of leclerc (he and Max both pitted regularly already) and just in front of Lando (or not). Max thinks not. Which is defendable. Norris was 11 seconds loose, max finished 8 behind =19 and a pitstop is 22 seconds so Norris would have needed an addition 3 secs. But on ever fresher hards. So would have been tight but a battle could have been in hand.

In any case, first win for a very quick Norris, and next race (Imola) is a good track of both Lando and Max. Will be interesting.

[Cs98]

Having fun today are we?

Just calling how I see it, mouse hole is very far from a critical geometrical feature and increasing its size by 50% or so can't have any major influence. Max never felt anything, live telemetry didn't show anything to the team, there was nothing substantial about it. If floor roof was damaged this much, it would have been a completely different story and he'd have felt that in T18-19 right away

I'm sure you've conducted lots of aerodynamic research on the importance of the mouse hole, and you've of course seen the full extent of the damage to the diffuser from underneath as well. RB don't need Newey, they need you!

[dia6olo]

The damage had little to no impact, I think some are clutching at straws with it.
Max was not all that quick, he was not exactly dropping the chasing cars long before any damage.

Ultimately I think they had an off day and didn't optimise the setup.
I also think many are thinking way to highly of McLaren who I expect to see firmly dropped back to third best after RBR's & Ferrari's upgrades.

Or he was quick, being able to build a 3 second lead on Piastri despite not having a great set-up. Ultimately that is likely also why he missed the chicane, as he was very close to a limit that was hard to determine.

Without a SC he would have likely been able to stay both ahead of leclerc (he and Max both pitted regularly already) and just in front of Lando (or not). Max thinks not. Which is defendable. Norris was 11 seconds loose, max finished 8 behind =19 and a pitstop is 22 seconds so Norris would have needed an addition 3 secs. But on ever fresher hards. So would have been tight but a battle could have been in hand.

In any case, first win for a very quick Norris, and next race (Imola) is a good track of both Lando and Max. Will be interesting.

Max was not all that quick and Piastri was holding up Leclerc who would have pushed Max a good bit more.

[Sieper]

The damage had little to no impact, I think some are clutching at straws with it.
Max was not all that quick, he was not exactly dropping the chasing cars long before any damage.

Ultimately I think they had an off day and didn't optimise the setup.
I also think many are thinking way to highly of McLaren who I expect to see firmly dropped back to third best after RBR's & Ferrari's upgrades.

Or he was quick, being able to build a 3 second lead on Piastri despite not having a great set-up. Ultimately that is likely also why he missed the chicane, as he was very close to a limit that was hard to determine.

Without a SC he would have likely been able to stay both ahead of leclerc (he and Max both pitted regularly already) and just in front of Lando (or not). Max thinks not. Which is defendable. Norris was 11 seconds loose, max finished 8 behind =19 and a pitstop is 22 seconds so Norris would have needed an addition 3 secs. But on ever fresher hards. So would have been tight but a battle could have been in hand.

In any case, first win for a very quick Norris, and next race (Imola) is a good track of both Lando and Max. Will be interesting.

Max was not all that quick and Piastri was holding up Leclerc who would have pushed Max a good bit more.

After the first round of pitstop (Leclerc went first and Max covered him off) leclerc could never get into DRS. Gap minimum was 1.9 and mostly fluctuated around 2.2

So no, Leclerc was not being held up by Piastri, the DRS actually was nice. Sainz and earlier Perez had dropped out of Piastri’s DRS.

[dia6olo]

Or he was quick, being able to build a 3 second lead on Piastri despite not having a great set-up. Ultimately that is likely also why he missed the chicane, as he was very close to a limit that was hard to determine.

Without a SC he would have likely been able to stay both ahead of leclerc (he and Max both pitted regularly already) and just in front of Lando (or not). Max thinks not. Which is defendable. Norris was 11 seconds loose, max finished 8 behind =19 and a pitstop is 22 seconds so Norris would have needed an addition 3 secs. But on ever fresher hards. So would have been tight but a battle could have been in hand.

In any case, first win for a very quick Norris, and next race (Imola) is a good track of both Lando and Max. Will be interesting.

Max was not all that quick and Piastri was holding up Leclerc who would have pushed Max a good bit more.

After the first round of pitstop (Leclerc went first and Max covered him off) leclerc could never get into DRS. Gap minimum was 1.9 and mostly fluctuated around 2.2

So no, Leclerc was not being held up by Piastri, the DRS actually was nice. Sainz and earlier Perez had dropped out of Piastri’s DRS.

Yes and any other race Max would have been gone.
After the first round of pitstops Leclerc's tyres were also quite a bit older.
Like I said Max was not all that quick.

[avantman]

Leclerc was indeed pathetic, the way he just let the slower mclaren of Piastri through like he was a backmarker getting lapped.

Imagine being Leclerc fan, constantly blaming half of the grid for not fighting hard enough against dominant Max and then seeing their driver fighting like that against slow Piastri. Both Ferrari cars were quite a bit faster than Piastri all race, unfortunately for Ferrari their faster car spent the whole race behind slower. Another wasted opportunity.

[Sieper]

Guys, Sainz got dropped out of DRS that first stint. Please.