2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[ringo]

Extrapolation not correlation issues.
What Wache could be saying is that you cannot possibly test every scenario, nor equally simulate them. The engineers will have representative data from simulation of a certIn situation to predict how the car should respond in a different event. I think this is where the issue is, and with 3 days alone of testing it's not really a big problem.
In the same way a short stint can be run on a tyre and then that sample data can be use to model how a longer stint would look like, with different variables being changed etc.
Keeping in mind Redbull have an old wind tunnel, they may be forced to extrapolate information from limited primary data collected.
This RB21 leaves a lot of questions in terms of progress, but I wouldnt say it's 4th or 1rst. We really have no idea.
It may just turn on Saturday to be the fastest car after a little tweaking.

[lio007]

If only the new wind tunnel would be finished in the coming weeks.
We only know it's 3 months ahead of schedule, but if the completion is scheduled anytime in '26 then we have still a long way to go with the old one.
And as we can see with AM, delays can occur unexpectedly.

[Henk_v]

Well, Red Bull has a long history of (using team language) looking f&cked and then taking pole.

To me it seems like the car we saw in testing was a mule car, that will very rapidly change.
Max is just really opportunistic and hard to keep behind & pass. As cheesy as it sounds; he just needs a decent car. He will be WDC, I have absolutely no doubt. The top is closer than ever and he has proven to be the master in playing that game in 21 and 24. He can do 24 mexico's if needed.

[Sergej]

He can do 24 mexico's if needed.

Let's hope not honestly.

[ringo]

Well i think any driver needs the fastest car on the day to win races. When the redbull was not fastest it did not win.
2024 there was a a big cushion that got eaten away and then Redbull improved the car to be a winner which slowed the bleeding of points. There were no miracles last year.
If the car doesnt have that cushion by being dominant in the first 8 races then there is no WDC if the car is not the fastest most of the time.
McLaren will run at the front and will stay there. If we go by last year they did not make any development mistakes. Max has never chased down a championship lead before, worse in a slower car. So I would be cautious about being too faithful in drivers. The faith should be in the engineers and sporting team to make the car the fastest.

[CHT]

Well i think any driver needs the fastest car on the day to win races. When the redbull was not fastest it did not win.
2024 there was a a big cushion that got eaten away and then Redbull improved the car to be a winner which slowed the bleeding of points. There were no miracles last year.
If the car doesnt have that cushion by being dominant in the first 8 races then there is no WDC if the car is not the fastest most of the time.
McLaren will run at the front and will stay there. If we go by last year they did not make any development mistakes. Max has never chased down a championship lead before, worse in a slower car. So I would be cautious about being too faithful in drivers. The faith should be in the engineers and sporting team to make the car the fastest.

To win WDC you also need to have a weaker teammate. Max obviously benefited from having Perez.
The same cant be said about Mclaren. Its very possible that Oscar will challenge Lando for race win again this season.
Both drivers are equally hungry to be WDC

[Cs98]

Well i think any driver needs the fastest car on the day to win races. When the redbull was not fastest it did not win.
2024 there was a a big cushion that got eaten away and then Redbull improved the car to be a winner which slowed the bleeding of points. There were no miracles last year.
If the car doesnt have that cushion by being dominant in the first 8 races then there is no WDC if the car is not the fastest most of the time.
McLaren will run at the front and will stay there. If we go by last year they did not make any development mistakes. Max has never chased down a championship lead before, worse in a slower car. So I would be cautious about being too faithful in drivers. The faith should be in the engineers and sporting team to make the car the fastest.

Gap before Miami, 52 points. Gap at the end of season, 63 points. The cushion didn't matter, driving did.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Well i think any driver needs the fastest car on the day to win races. When the redbull was not fastest it did not win.
2024 there was a a big cushion that got eaten away and then Redbull improved the car to be a winner which slowed the bleeding of points. There were no miracles last year.
If the car doesnt have that cushion by being dominant in the first 8 races then there is no WDC if the car is not the fastest most of the time.
McLaren will run at the front and will stay there. If we go by last year they did not make any development mistakes. Max has never chased down a championship lead before, worse in a slower car. So I would be cautious about being too faithful in drivers. The faith should be in the engineers and sporting team to make the car the fastest.

To win WDC you also need to have a weaker teammate. Max obviously benefited from having Perez.
The same cant be said about Mclaren. Its very possible that Oscar will challenge Lando for race win again this season.
Both drivers are equally hungry to be WDC

Max had to fight alone against top teams; they had a tactical advantage in strategy. In addition to this they had beat just Max when Max had two drivers per top team to beat.

[Vettel165]

I am still watching that race in Brasil nearly every week. What a masterpiece by Max. He earned his title with the car that was nearly third best in the second part of the season.

[nitrotech]

Well i think any driver needs the fastest car on the day to win races. When the redbull was not fastest it did not win.
2024 there was a a big cushion that got eaten away and then Redbull improved the car to be a winner which slowed the bleeding of points. There were no miracles last year.
If the car doesnt have that cushion by being dominant in the first 8 races then there is no WDC if the car is not the fastest most of the time.
McLaren will run at the front and will stay there. If we go by last year they did not make any development mistakes. Max has never chased down a championship lead before, worse in a slower car. So I would be cautious about being too faithful in drivers. The faith should be in the engineers and sporting team to make the car the fastest.

To win WDC you also need to have a weaker teammate. Max obviously benefited from having Perez.
The same cant be said about Mclaren. Its very possible that Oscar will challenge Lando for race win again this season.
Both drivers are equally hungry to be WDC

If the two McLaren drivers can consistently keep fighting for race wins, it only means both of them would consistently increase gap to Max. Unless, either McLaren driver when doesn't win, always finishes third behind Max, who would always end up 2nd. That's a difficult ask. These cars are now almost bullet proof and reliability failures are a distant thing. There is no way Max can win in a WDC in second best car against two strong drivers in McLaren. He can only do so when he has a car with which he can win a good number of races on merit, even if his number of wins are less than the McLaren drivers', but can consistently finish 2nd in most races.

I agree with ringo that Max had a good cushion and McLaren wasn't 100% consistent last year. Also, Ferrari and Mercedes weren't consistently quick across the season. If Ferrari manages a car that is as good as Red Bull and Mercedes shows up more often than last year, then Max always finishing behind McLaren is an impossible ask.

Besides, Max can lose his cool far more easily and get frustrated when not leading the race, due to which he has made a lot of racing errors. As we saw in Mexico, penalties may galore if that sort of driving returns. He is not too far on penalty points and can easily get a race ban.

[FittingMechanics]

Last year Max won by being an amazing (and ruthless driver), but one thing that is also underestimated is how Piastri was unable to help Lando at all because he would finish behind Max. Only times Piastri had good races is when he also beat Lando (Hungary for example). I don't have the data here, but I wouldn't be surprised if overall Piastri only worsened Landos gap to Max.

As said, if McLaren has a strong car and Piastri ups his game, it will only be harder for Max.

[Wouter]