2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[PierreW]

You'd rather Verstappen got black flagged than have 7 WDCs and over 100 race wins? A history of beating 4 other WDCs in the same equipment? Be someone who competed for championships and beat an established WDC at the peak of his powers from his very first season? And without a constant reputation for crashing people off the road who are faster than him or needing the FIA to rig Championships? Yeah, I'm sure Verstappen would rather ram into people for no reason than end up matching Lewis Hamilton.

I had rather see Verstappen get black flagged than ending up depressed and struggling like Hamilton now. That's a driver that look washed up and on the verge of crying after every race on own sad fate. Honestly it's a bad look and I don''t like Hamilton but seeing a champion like that finishing that badly is not good.

This is Lewis' 18th season in Formula 1 as opposed to Max's 10th. Lewis has achieved everything he set to achieve and more by becoming the most successful driver of the sport (statistically). You can't compare a driver who is on his way to retirement with one who is at his prime.

I say that when you lose the fire, it's probably time to retire. Max being furious still show that he has the fire. Hamilton is being pushed aside to let pass Leclerc and he says nothing.

[PierreW]

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko admitted in Barcelona that Red Bull is letting the Dutchman race later in 2025.

"If you want to make Max smile, you have to talk about GT," he told ORF.

"There are calendar gaps in the autumn, and I assume Max has already taken a close look at that."

Having earlier forbidden Verstappen to even go skiing in winter, Marko defended the decision to let the 27-year-old actually race in another category.

"A GT car is a relatively slow car," said the Austrian.


The team trying to retain Max with off F1 bonus, since they probably don't expect good things with their car.

[AR3-GP]

Oh my lordy

I can see you copied and pasted that right out of Sun Tzu's the art of running an F1 team.

Maybe you could build it, and they will come?

That's how successful teams or companies fall, the people who build it leave and then the people who stay or replaced them rest on their laurels and wrongly become complacent because they inherited from a great work but can't maintain it.

Red Bull is at this stage and Max is sounding the alarm bell while the technical team just released a car that crushed 3 drivers in less than one year. Yuki already look like a depressed man now. Max is righfully fed up by that.

I had rather see him getting mad and furious then being depressed , giving up , accepting mediocrity and ending up like Hamilton.

You can't fully reset in the last quarter of a technical regulation set. There's not enough resources or windtunnel time. In order to build this car in a fundamentally different way, Red Bull would have had to concede winning any races for the last 2 years. Look how long it took Mclaren to reset and come back...Mercedes still has not managed it. Do you think Max and Yuki would like Red Bull to throw the current car away and run a midfield mule car for 1.5+ years in hopes of developing a fundamentally different concept? What would be the purpose with such little time remaining before the rules change?

One has to be realistic about how much time it takes to advance a concept. It's not the work of a minute and most teams don't manage it in any given year. When you actually get ahold of something that wins races, you will be reluctant to let it go even if the drivers are complaining about it. The drivers don't engineer the cars. They don't understand how difficult it is to actually make progress and they don't really understand what it would take to fundamentally reinvent the car. Red Bull is essentially limping along a modified RB20 to the end of the regulations set because that is in fact the best thing to do. Any other option and they would never see the fruit of the labor in time to win a championship.

Also, the RB21 on paper doesn't look close, but in terms of the neccesary upgrades, there are certain subtle changes which can have a huge impact. They have done a lot of good work in the last 4 months, and I think it will all come together quite nicely soon enough. It will never be competitive in a place like Singapore (philosophy), but they can be stronger elsewhere if the upgrade works as intended.

[mwillems]

I had rather see him getting mad and furious then being depressed , giving up , accepting mediocrity and ending up like Hamilton.

You'd rather Verstappen got black flagged than have 7 WDCs and over 100 race wins? A history of beating 4 other WDCs in the same equipment? Be someone who competed for championships and beat an established WDC at the peak of his powers from his very first season? And without a constant reputation for crashing people off the road who are faster than him or needing the FIA to rig Championships? Yeah, I'm sure Verstappen would rather ram into people for no reason than end up matching Lewis Hamilton.

I had rather see Verstappen get black flagged than ending up depressed and struggling like Hamilton now. That's a driver that look washed up and on the verge of crying after every race on own sad fate. Honestly it's a bad look and I don''t like Hamilton but seeing a champion like that finishing that badly is not good.

None of this answers any of the sensible points made. Max can do no wrong, Max doesn't care about this, Max doesnt care about that. It's really clear that to many RB "fans", Max is the only important component. Im not sure its that healthy an approach, but its become pretty normalised.

Mclaren don't have the best drivers, but they have the best team, and that is worth so much more. But today the only thing is what Max thinks, or Max compared to.otber drivers, as if thats the only thing that counts. And honestly i read things like that and its symptomatic (reflective) of RBs decline.

[Paa]

I just watched the race.
I interpreted Verstappen's move on George as if he wanted to let him go. Then a bit later he realized that he should let him go strategically, before the DRS section (like he eventually did). And he pushed the gas to stay ahead of him, but it was too late and out of sync.

1. Team asking him to let past George was bad.

2. Putting the hard vs staying out on used softs (and possibly P1) was probably a mistake, but hard to judge.
I mean, anything would have been better that what actually happened.

Max lost control, but the team also panicked I think.

[PierreW]

Oh my lordy

I can see you copied and pasted that right out of Sun Tzu's the art of running an F1 team.

Maybe you could build it, and they will come?

That's how successful teams or companies fall, the people who build it leave and then the people who stay or replaced them rest on their laurels and wrongly become complacent because they inherited from a great work but can't maintain it.

Red Bull is at this stage and Max is sounding the alarm bell while the technical team just released a car that crushed 3 drivers in less than one year. Yuki already look like a depressed man now. Max is righfully fed up by that.

I had rather see him getting mad and furious then being depressed , giving up , accepting mediocrity and ending up like Hamilton.

You can't fully reset in the last quarter of a technical regulation set. There's not enough resources or windtunnel time. In order to build this car in a fundamentally different way, Red Bull would have had to concede winning any races for the last 2 years. Look how long it took Mclaren to reset and come back...Mercedes still has not managed it. Do you think Max and Yuki would like Red Bull to throw the current car away and run a midfield mule car for 1.5+ years in hopes of developing a fundamentally different concept? What would be the purpose with such little time remaining before the rules change?

One has to be realistic about how much time it takes to advance a concept. It's not the work of a minute and most teams don't manage it in any given year. When you actually get ahold of something that wins races, you will be reluctant to let it go even if the drivers are complaining about it. The drivers don't engineer the cars. They don't understand how difficult it is to actually make progress and they don't really understand what it would take to fundamentally reinvent the car. Red Bull is essentially limping along a modified RB20 to the end of the regulations set because that is in fact the best thing to do. Any other option and they would never see the fruit of the labor in time to win a championship.

Also, the RB21 on paper doesn't look close, but in terms of the neccesary upgrades, there are certain subtle changes which can have a huge impact. They have done a lot of good work in the last 4 months, and I think it will all come together quite nicely soon enough. It will never be competitive in a place like Singapore (philosophy), but they can be stronger elsewhere if the upgrade works as intended.

So basically you say that the Red Bull would need to do a complete reset of the car. That means that all the development done the last two years were fundamentally flawed and wrong, since Newey left, RB did not do anything good and in fact, each update made the car further and further weaker.

That's not only McLaren who are much better, but also Mercedes and Ferrari now. All of them have outdevelopped Red Bull in the building of their car. Without Max, be realistic, Red Bull would be lucky to have 20 points in the championship. That would be the result of all the work of the engineers. Probably the pool of engineers need to be strengthened or renewed if the result of their work is pushing and pushing toward the bottom.

Max and the second drivers, all feel that the car is not good and hard to drive. Red Bull has fallen fourth in the constructor championship, the execution of pit stops and strategy is declining sharply, Horner is spreading words that they can't understand why their wind tunnel is wrong and give them pieces that don't work in real life. Max is getting fed up with all of that.

The way RB is working isn't succeeding. They are declining and Max can see it and obviously won't accept it quietly.

This year, the only thing that separate Red Bull from being the 8th team is Max Verstappen. Next year, with the new engine, they could be even worse seeing how the rest of the team is performing at a low level.

[Sergej]

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko admitted in Barcelona that Red Bull is letting the Dutchman race later in 2025.

"If you want to make Max smile, you have to talk about GT," he told ORF.

"There are calendar gaps in the autumn, and I assume Max has already taken a close look at that."

Having earlier forbidden Verstappen to even go skiing in winter, Marko defended the decision to let the 27-year-old actually race in another category.

"A GT car is a relatively slow car," said the Austrian.


The team trying to retain Max with off F1 bonus, since they probably don't expect good things with their car.

lol they are trading lack of competitiveness with letting him doing other series tough times ahead

[PierreW]

You'd rather Verstappen got black flagged than have 7 WDCs and over 100 race wins? A history of beating 4 other WDCs in the same equipment? Be someone who competed for championships and beat an established WDC at the peak of his powers from his very first season? And without a constant reputation for crashing people off the road who are faster than him or needing the FIA to rig Championships? Yeah, I'm sure Verstappen would rather ram into people for no reason than end up matching Lewis Hamilton.

I had rather see Verstappen get black flagged than ending up depressed and struggling like Hamilton now. That's a driver that look washed up and on the verge of crying after every race on own sad fate. Honestly it's a bad look and I don''t like Hamilton but seeing a champion like that finishing that badly is not good.

None of this answers any of the sensible points made. Max can do no wrong, Max doesn't care about this, Max doesnt care about that. It's really clear that to many RB "fans", Max is the only important component. Im not sure its that healthy an approach, but its become pretty normalised.

Mclaren don't have the best drivers, but they have the best team, and that is worth so much more. But today the only thing is what Max thinks, or Max compared to.otber drivers, as if thats the only thing that counts. And honestly i read things like that and its symptomatic (reflective) of RBs decline.

Max can do wrong like everyone, but this season, he is the only part of Red Bull that is working at a high level.

Max isn't responsible if nearly all of the key men of Red Bull success left and have not been replaced with equally successful engineers.

You found the problem, today Red Bull is not operating like a top team. Max is hiding the extent of their problems. They rely completely on him.

[mwillems]

I think Max is part of the problem.

[PierreW]

I think Max is part of the problem.

He isn't. He does not operate the team, does not engineer the car. Also only Max would have won the titles in 2021 and 2024. In 2025, it would be a bloodbath without him.

[Emag]

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko admitted in Barcelona that Red Bull is letting the Dutchman race later in 2025.

"If you want to make Max smile, you have to talk about GT," he told ORF.

"There are calendar gaps in the autumn, and I assume Max has already taken a close look at that."

Having earlier forbidden Verstappen to even go skiing in winter, Marko defended the decision to let the 27-year-old actually race in another category.

"A GT car is a relatively slow car," said the Austrian.


The team trying to retain Max with off F1 bonus, since they probably don't expect good things with their car.

Going off topic to the current discussion, but ...

Although what Helmut says is true with respect to F1 and other open-wheelers, it's kind of a funny statement to make.
In terms of pure racing, I would say GT cars are better actually. In F1, pace is dictated too much by downforce and "ideal conditions", the driver doesn't always get the chance to make the difference. It's no wonder Max loves it. I think I mentioned it before. I wouldn't want Max to retire from F1, but if he does, I really hope he gives GT racing a go. It would be a blast to watch.

[AR3-GP]

That's not only McLaren who are much better, but also Mercedes and Ferrari now. All of them have outdevelopped Red Bull in the building of their car. Without Max, be realistic, Red Bull would be lucky to have 20 points in the championship. That would be the result of all the work of the engineers. Probably the pool of engineers need to be strengthened or renewed if the result of their work is pushing and pushing toward the bottom.

The development of the RB20 was bad. They were behind Ferrari and Mercedes at end of last year. This is true but it's water under the bridge. They were bold to try something new so that they wouldn't be caught. It failed. That happens sometimes...

The RB21 is different. There has been massive progress with the Jeddah-Miami-Imola upgrades. Did we watch the same race today? In 50C track temp, with extra pit stop, Max was going to finish 1 pitstop ahead of the Ferrari and 2 pitstops ahead of the Mercedes. They have turned it around to some extent. The updates are "upgrades", not "downgrades". I've already discussed the rear axle temperature management of the Mclaren. Red Bull are working on their own solution to improve this detail. If that upgrade succeeds, it will unlock laptime in qualifying and the race from the existing car, without any aero update. That is purely from how they can set the car up without having to protect the rear end as much, and how the tires stay alive throughout the qualy lap.

Yes, no one but Max would be doing that in this car, but the RB21 still has it's roots in the RB20 and there's only so much that can change with the resource available. The alternative is to set yourself back 1-2 years on a brand new aero concept and basically run mid-pick through the end of 2025, for no reason at all since the rules are changing.

Look where Ferrari is where there 99% new car. Ferrari was not wrong to pursue a brand new concept, but it takes time to extract the full potential and there isn't enough time to do that if you were hoping to compete in the championships. Ferrari just gambled that it wouldn't take so long to get the concept up to speed. They have potential and we've seen glimpses of it, but the championships will have been long out of reach by the time that they extract it.

[mwillems]

He's out of reach of RB, too big for the team now since he can behave how he wants, but you cant succeed without him. For me its a central part of RBs issue in that he became the sole focus and the mantra, supported by Marko - kill or be killed, has created a lot of casualties on the way To compound it is that if he leaves, you can see that RB cant find anyone else than can do much better with it than if it were a HAAS.

[Juzh]

Watch the replay of incident with Leclerc from Max onboard. It is criminal really those things are getting unpunished. Also, I never rated Rosberg highly as a commentator, and today he again proved his poor quality being too fast saying Max turned into Charles, that was utterly unprofessional on top of being plain and utterly wrong..
Now I can get even more why Max started heating up. Ironically, people would never be talking about Charles deliberately driving into Max despite the fact he did that exactly.
https://streamff.com/v/87ae4e48

If Leclerc is in front, then he gets to dictate the line. At the point of the collision, who is in front?

Being in front is not enough to push someone to the side on the straight who's just holding his own line. You have to be completely ahead. See vettel/leclerc in brazil 19. Leclerc held his line, Vettel tried to squeeze him and it ended badly. Here they were lucky nothing happened, but if it did it would be leclerc's fault entirely.

[PierreW]

That's not only McLaren who are much better, but also Mercedes and Ferrari now. All of them have outdevelopped Red Bull in the building of their car. Without Max, be realistic, Red Bull would be lucky to have 20 points in the championship. That would be the result of all the work of the engineers. Probably the pool of engineers need to be strengthened or renewed if the result of their work is pushing and pushing toward the bottom.

The development of the RB20 was bad. They were behind Ferrari and Mercedes at end of last year. This is true but it's water under the bridge. They were bold to try something new so that they wouldn't be caught. It failed. That happens sometimes...

The RB21 is different. There has been massive progress with the Jeddah-Miami-Imola upgrades. Did we watch the same race today? In 50C track temp, with extra pit stop, Max was going to finish 1 pitstop ahead of the Ferrari and 2 pitstops ahead of the Mercedes. They have turned it around to some extent. The updates are "upgrades", not "downgrades". I've already discussed the rear axle temperature management of the Mclaren. Red Bull are working on their own solution to improve this detail. If that upgrade succeeds, it will unlock laptime in qualifying and the race from the existing car, without any aero update. That is purely from how they can set the car up without having to protect the rear end as much, and how the tires stay alive throughout the qualy lap.

Yes, no one but Max would be doing that in this car, but the RB21 still has it's roots in the RB20 and there's only so much that can change with the resource available. The alternative is to set yourself back 1-2 years on a brand new aero concept and basically run mid-pick through the end of 2025, for no reason at all since the rules are changing.

Look where Ferrari is where there 99% new car. Ferrari was not wrong to pursue a brand new concept, but it takes time to extract the full potential and there isn't enough time to do that if you were hoping to compete in the championships. Ferrari just gambled that it wouldn't take so long to get the concept up to speed. They have potential and we've seen glimpses of it, but the championships will have been long out of reach by the time that they extract it.

They are still behind Mercedes and Ferrari if we watch the rankings. There are two drivers. I stop to believe what Red Bull say, the car is like last year, a diva that needs perfect conditions and a perfect extreme driving to have a chance to win. The slightest element not going its way and the car drops off.

Horner still say that they don"t understand why their updtates never work and why the wind tunnel does not correlate with the reality. Wache just admitted today that they got Tsunoda settup completely wrong. The car is very hard to set up and does not react as intented. It's the definition of a diva when the others cars are much more balanced.

Verstappen sounded the alarm early last year but was ignored on Wache own words.

But the most damning judgement came from Newey who said that the team lacked experience and that's why they struggled now. This is not the same team that won in 2021-2023 anymore.

I am very convinced that RB engineers still don't know what is wrong and even less how to fix it. The car work only in a very specific window and with a perfect set up and only when Max drives it.