2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Quantum]

This is the lowest downforce wing they possess. Michael Schmidt has destroyed his reputation in the span of two days by reporting stories that aren't accurate or based in fact. According to Helmut Marko this is what they have.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10675223/

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said: "We don't have another rear wing, a smaller rear wing, as we see it on our competitors. It would be more helpful, for sure."

Asked if there was a chance the team could fly a less trimmed one out overnight from its Milton Keynes factory, Marko said: "No."

[langedweil]

[langedweil]

[venkyhere]

watched highlights of FP1 and FP2, so observations aren't very credible anyway, but here goes :
- RB20 is 1s/lap slower than the other three, in S3 alone, with fuel in the car. That can't be engine mode alone, alteast half of it is pure drag, I think (especially when they are using that 'chop shop' rear wing from Spa/Monza)
- They did a long run on softs in FP1, sacrificing a 'quali set' of S ?
- body language of the car with Max driving it, seemed very 'nervous' especially at the exit of T5, T12, T14 even if he was braking very early (after a few excursions into the straight run offs at these corners), while others were smoothly applying throttle and confidently passing near the wall at the exit, Max was hacking at the wheel far more than others and applying throttle much later over the exit. I suspect this is because there isn't much downforce coming from the floor and car is understeering far more than expected.

All said, I hoped to see atleast 1 complaint radio messsage from Max, but those that were shown, were all about irrelevant things. Surely, he would've complained a lot in normal course if the car is behaving like this and is losing 1s in just one sector. Hence, I don't know what is the 'read' on the car from the two practice sessions. Perhaps someone who watched both sessions fully can chime in.

SomethingI I forgot to mention (but saw) :
The engine cover - what happened to the elephant trunk "low drag" cover ? this 'conventional' one being used in Vegas is supposed to be the highDF one, isn't it ? Which engine cover did they use (with the same chop-shop rear wing) in Spa & Monza ?
I have a feeling they got too confident with the success of RB19 that they 'ignored' a specialist low-drag Monza wing for 2024 at the planning stage itself. Of course, Perez' crashes don't help the budget, but nevertheless, not having a low-df/drag wing (that woudl suit Spa/Monza/Vegas) is looking like a blunder.

[Sergej]

The theory that they chose the wrong engine cover makes much more sense, especially when you know that this year the correlation with sim sucks.

[AR3-GP]

Maybe they aren't spending resources because from their point of view, the championships are finished. At worst, Max would finish 7th in every remaining GP and that's enough.

Would they have had to manufacture the low downforce engine cover and spares? Would that be worth the investment after Brazil? Many teams are stretched for parts and resources now.

[f1isgood]

I remember RB revamping their cooling for this car from last year. Also looking back, this year we have had insane allowance of flexi front and rear wings, floor skids, watergate etc, none of which showed itself last year.

Moreover, it is still quite unclear at least to me where the problems are with the car and general development. Part of the reason RB did so well last year was competition bottling it and even then we had races where the competition was at least if not better than RB in some areas -- McL in high speed corners (but not overall) and Ferrari in the straights. There was also races like Qatar, Brazil which Max won on his own -- probably Vegas as well. RB19 was a better rounded car but this McLaren seems to have a better compromise since even the 19 could never do slow speed like this McLaren.

Curious for the RB21. Something that has good lap time, tire deg and overall different strengths than whatever McL cook up would be very nice. Anyways the Technical Team have their job cut out. Probably their biggest challenge yet.

[f1isgood]

Maybe they aren't spending resources because from their point of view, the championships are finished. At worst, Max would finish 7th in every remaining GP and that's enough.

Would they have had to manufacture the low downforce engine cover and spares? Would that be worth the investment after Brazil? Many teams are stretched for parts and resources now.

I think they should have done it at the start of the year.

The issue with real development this year I also hypothesize is that they only started to do it once McL became much quicker. Like the in season upgrades mostly didn't work in this ground effect era anyways except for the 2022 ones at Imola and Spa -- or at least there was no noticeable performance jump.

[basti313]

Maybe they aren't spending resources because from their point of view, the championships are finished. At worst, Max would finish 7th in every remaining GP and that's enough.

Would they have had to manufacture the low downforce engine cover and spares? Would that be worth the investment after Brazil? Many teams are stretched for parts and resources now.

I think this is nonsense, every position within the top 10 gives extra price money and the engine covers are there. I can not believe in cost saving due to a suboptimal solution.

I read into this, that the package like this was not perfectly evaluated and they underestimated the efficiency in this combination. They neither have downforce, nor a low drag, it is simply not efficient.

So the story about the engine covers is definitely more solid.

They could have relatively cheap put an employee like Horners assistant into the plane at 4pm at Heathrow with a front wing. That was done often in the past. But shipping any big structures is not possible like this. Vegas is no classic cargo airport.

[AR3-GP]

I think they should have done it at the start of the year.

I think the "problem" isn't as easy as low load wings in Red Bull's case. All data points indicate that the car actually becomes worse and worse as rear load is removed. Perez said the rear was undriveable in the low speed today when they took more rear load off (we also saw that in Spa free practice and in Monza). Others are able to trim the car out without losing the baseline balance and drivability. It is something they need to understand, and it probably linked to the floor concept, flexible wings, and suspension.

If the "thing" was fixed, then they'd still be competitive here even with a higher load wing. Further to that point, they have a bigger rear wing, yet they still have more tire degradation than others... It's not the wings that are making the car bad. It's something else imo.

[AR3-GP]

I think this is nonsense, every position within the top 10 gives extra price money and the engine covers are there. I can not believe in cost saving due to a suboptimal solution.

I'm not saying they have given up, but one has to be realistic. Resources are limited since the budget cap was introduced. This season would look different with unlimited spending.

[TNTHead]

I think they should have done it at the start of the year.

I think the "problem" isn't as easy as low load wings in Red Bull's case. All data points indicate that the car actually becomes worse and worse as rear load is removed. Perez said the rear was undriveable in the low speed today when they took more rear load off (we also saw that in Spa free practice and in Monza). Others are able to trim the car out without losing the baseline balance and drivability. It is something they need to understand, and it probably linked to the floor concept, flexible wings, and suspension.

If the "thing" was fixed, then they'd still be competitive here even with a higher load wing. Further to that point, they have a bigger rear wing, yet they still have more tire degradation than others... It's not the wings that are making the car bad. It's something else imo.

This also means that some load on the wings is needed to correct the inherent absence of balance in the car which is shown painfully on the low drag / low df circuits.
With the RB21 we'll see whether the design team can do the job without Newey.

[f1isgood]

I think they should have done it at the start of the year.

I think the "problem" isn't as easy as low load wings in Red Bull's case. All data points indicate that the car actually becomes worse and worse as rear load is removed. Perez said the rear was undriveable in the low speed today when they took more rear load off (we also saw that in Spa free practice and in Monza). Others are able to trim the car out without losing the baseline balance and drivability. It is something they need to understand, and it probably linked to the floor concept, flexible wings, and suspension.

If the "thing" was fixed, then they'd still be competitive here even with a higher load wing. Further to that point, they have a bigger rear wing, yet they still have more tire degradation than others... It's not the wings that are making the car bad. It's something else imo.

What I should have said was that they should have had a plan when starting off with the RB20 itself for such a wing. But then I guess, the initial "upgrades" didn't upgrade the car, and then as you rightly point out, it has been a downward spiral since. This would have only become relevant around mid-season preparing for Monza anyways, so you raise very good points.

Only one thing was noticeably worse on this car than RB19 even in the first few races -- the race trim advantage was just not there in terms of tire wear and one upgrade from McLaren undid that.

[Paa]

Maybe they aren't spending resources because from their point of view, the championships are finished. At worst, Max would finish 7th in every remaining GP and that's enough.

Would they have had to manufacture the low downforce engine cover and spares? Would that be worth the investment after Brazil? Many teams are stretched for parts and resources now.

But they had those covers already, it is not like they would have had to produce them now from scratch.

Also if this was calculated, they would not be surprised now that current config doesn't work. It would have been different expectation management etc. Max was talking about fighting for win before the weekend.
Their whole body language suggest this was not expected.

edit: but I agree, it is very difficult to find a rational explanation to why did they bring their high df engine cover here, out of all tracks!
Even if they wanted to experiment with something, they could have brought both option and do a back to back test in FP1 or something.

[AR3-GP]

I think the "high downforce engine cover" thing is a red herring. The original launch spec engine cover with the cannons was in use all year long (including Monaco, Barcelona) until Hungary where they started calling it a "low downforce" engine cover and we got a story about their being 2 different engine cover specs (something that neither of Mclaren or Ferrari have needed in their cars which are faster than the Red Bull with 1 engine cover all year...)

So I think it's more likely that the old engine cover was just a bad part which is why it has been abandoned. Mercedes also abandoned that cannon design last year... Keep in mind that the current "high downforce" engine cover is the engine cover that was used on the RB18 and the RB19 which were very efficient cars but now we're being told it's a "draggy high downforce engine cover"? Is that not suspicious? The "two engine cover" thing sounds more like a PR operation. The were probably just experimenting and realized the original design from last year is better so we'll never seen the cannons again (but let's wait until Saturday to confirm that...)