2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[mwillems]

But we don't have the best drivers, it's a simple fact. Max is the best driver. Mclaren's success has been about every component, not one, this is the team that is leading today because they focussed on building the team, not the car. it's why the comments made about the Mclaren drivers are laughable and misguided.

"Ridiculous. RBR's decline is due to a large technical talent loss and ignoring concerns from their best driver."

But this is the way many RB fans do indeed talk about it, and the way the team certainly appear to approach it, epitomised by their disregard for Newey's concerns that they were developing a car with flaws that only one driver could handle.

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

RBR won 8x WDC operating in their ways. Twice 4 in a row. Methods and philosophies that were co-signed by Rob Marshall, Jonathan Wheatley, William Courtenay, Adrian Newey, and other recent departures to Mclaren. People that according to you must have been deeply unhappy for 18 years before they figured out where horner kept the keys to get out of the building? What exactly is the argument here? Your making Newey out to be the one guy against the team he hand built with Horner, Marko, and Mateschitz. A large part of why many of these people are gone is because 20+ years is a long time to stay in 1 team, and the budget cap made it impossible for them all to stay in the same place. Are there any 20+ year leaders at Mclaren?

Newey's disagreements were normal. He stated that this was in his working pihlosophy. Disagreement is not end all be all. He liked to be challenged by the other technical leaders within the team. He said that himself. There's no proof that Newey's proposal would have worked better. That is only your suspicion without evidence. Newey helped make many good cars, but some were not.

I think you're making fairly lazy arguments as well, perhaps drunk off Mclaren's more recent success. Did you make the same arguments in the Vettel era or after Max won in 2021? RB had troubles with the 2nd driver when Adrian Newey was the technical director with full authority. Webber was nowhere towards end of Vettel reign. Gasly experienced the wrath of Adrian Newey directly. Now your trying to claim that Adrian was secretly against Red Bull's philosophy the whole time? What took him so long to quit?

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

You've taken an interesting a specific perspective of that statement, so I'll bypass most of that. I haven't said they are doing it all wrong, nor talked about their previous achievements. They are a different team now to where they were then - even 2 years ago, this much is apparent.

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

[leblanc]

A lot of words for uncompelling arguments.

But we don't have the best drivers, it's a simple fact. Max is the best driver. Mclaren's success has been about every component, not one, this is the team that is leading today because they focussed on building the team, not the car. it's why the comments made about the Mclaren drivers are laughable and misguided.

The best driver is not required to win a championship. Having a great team does not guarantee a championship.

But this is the way many RB fans do indeed talk about it, and the way the team certainly appear to approach it, epitomised by their disregard for Newey's concerns that they were developing a car with flaws that only one driver could handle.

Then, you agree.

[mwillems]

It was always my point, but the car is still capable of being very fast in the right hands. And it is very fast.
Compelling? It doesn't matter. It is certainly true of Mclaren and the way they have shape the culture of the team, you don't have to look too hard to look at red Bull to see that people might not want to be there.

[Emag]

It seems now that the flexi wing saga has subsided, McLaren's tyre temperature management is being framed as the next significant factor contributing to their main advantage. This could indeed be the case, and it probably is a contributing factor. However, I think it's not accurate to assume that rear tyre temperature management, specifically, is McLaren's biggest advantage over their competitors.

The discussion around their brake ducts, for instance, looks increasingly like a "smoke-show" rather than them being the fundamental reason for McLaren's perceived strong rear tyre temperature management. Based on The Race report after the FIA's detailed inspection in Miami, they noted:

Formal confirmation of the McLaren all-clear comes after the FIA also clarified its stance that the use of any special tricks of technology to help cool the brakes or tyres would be illegal.

This put to bed any notion of the team using radical ideas like phase-changing materials to help better manage brake or tyre temperatures.

I also commented on this in the McLaren car thread previously. After thoroughly investigating the matter myself when the rumors started, it's clear that the Technical Regulations explicitly state that it is not permitted to use any medium other than air to cool the brakes. This significantly restricts the scope for exotic cooling solutions directly at the brake assembly.

In my opinion, this entire aspect of their performance is not a "one-trick-pony." The design of the rear brake drums alone cannot be the sole reason for superior temperature management, particularly from an area so heavily constrained by technical regulations. I think there's more to it and you would need to design the whole rear end of the car with it in consideration.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there's a tendency to entirely ignore McLaren's performance in Imola when discussing this topic.
You can't logically claim that McLaren's strong pace at Miami was primarily due to high track temperatures and then discard Imola as a relevant data point. McLaren was in a league of their own in Miami under those conditions. However, at Imola, where the race saw track temperatures ~ 3-4 degrees Celsius higher than in Miami, Max Verstappen was, at the very least, a match for them.

This brings up the question: which of these performances is the outlier? Because if you take both races into consideration, the correlation between high track temperatures and the performance gap from McLaren to the next follower significantly weakens. This suggests that while tyre management is a strength, its impact relative to overall car performance in varying conditions needs to be reconsidered.

The flexi-wing saga is not over yet IMO, we have to see maybe the next 2-3 races to confirm, however Barcelona is a good track to test its impact. Tough conditions on the race as well, but it seemingly did nothing to McLaren's pace in both long runs and low fuel performance runs.

But either way, I am mostly awaiting on RedBull's rumored rear corner updates. I am ready to eat my words if they make a clear jump in performance from that alone, but as things stand right now, I am personally very sceptical.

[AR3-GP]

You've taken an interesting a specific perspective of that statement, so I'll bypass most of that. I haven't said they are doing it all wrong, nor talked about their previous achievements. They are a different team now to where they were then - even 2 years ago, this much is apparent.

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

Johnathan Wheatley definitely had no reason to leave middle management role at RBR, even though he was being offered a team principal position with a greater salary at Audi, which RBR could not offer him.

Rob Marshall had no reason to leave RBR, even though Mclaren offered him the role of chief car designer, which for RBR could not offer as there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and Rob wanted to design cars again, and Mclaren made him an offer that twice as much as RBR.

and Adrian Newey didnt leave because he was offered a more encompassing role again, after others were promoted to technical leadership within Red Bull.

RBR's political environment was by no means ideal, but many of these changes were going to come because of the budget cap squeezing salaries, and the looming regulation change,

[leblanc]

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

Ah, there's the prejudice.

[mwillems]

You've taken an interesting a specific perspective of that statement, so I'll bypass most of that. I haven't said they are doing it all wrong, nor talked about their previous achievements. They are a different team now to where they were then - even 2 years ago, this much is apparent.

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

Johnathan Wheatley definitely had no reason to leave middle management role at RBR, even though he was being offered a team principal position with a greater salary at Audi, which RBR could not offer him.

Rob Marshall had no reason to leave RBR, even though Mclaren offered him the role of chief car designer, which for RBR could not offer as there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and Rob wanted to design cars again, and Mclaren made him an offer that twice as much as RBR.

and Adrian Newey didnt leave because he was offered a more encompassing role again, after others were promoted to technical leadership within Red Bull.

RBR's political environment was by no means ideal, but many of these changes were going to come because of the budget cap squeezing salaries, and the looming regulation change,

But why are you focussing on those names and not the fact that the whole paddock has spoken about being awash with the CVs of Red Bull employees?

Newey is the only person I'd mentioned, and I'm certain he's been offered bags of cash and all sorts of positions for ages. I doubt that was the prime motivator, in my opinion. The fact that Newey renewed his contracts just a year before he decided to leave just seems to make it just a little more odd.

Listen, I'm not here to knock you, but you have to look at reality a little bit, my perspective is totally understandeable.

[leblanc]

It was always my point, but the car is still capable of being very fast in the right hands. And it is very fast.
Compelling? It doesn't matter. It is certainly true of Mclaren and the way they have shape the culture of the team, you don't have to look too hard to look at red Bull to see that people might not want to be there.

I never even alluded to compelling. I am also not able to read minds.

Are you high?

[Watto]

But we don't have the best drivers, it's a simple fact. Max is the best driver. Mclaren's success has been about every component, not one, this is the team that is leading today because they focussed on building the team, not the car. it's why the comments made about the Mclaren drivers are laughable and misguided.

"Ridiculous. RBR's decline is due to a large technical talent loss and ignoring concerns from their best driver."

But this is the way many RB fans do indeed talk about it, and the way the team certainly appear to approach it, epitomised by their disregard for Newey's concerns that they were developing a car with flaws that only one driver could handle.

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

RBR won 8x WDC operating in their ways. Twice 4 in a row. Methods and philosophies that were co-signed by Rob Marshall, Jonathan Wheatley, William Courtenay, Adrian Newey, and other recent departures to Mclaren. People that according to you must have been deeply unhappy for 18 years before they figured out where horner kept the keys to get out of the building? What exactly is the argument here? Your making Newey out to be the one guy against the team he hand built with Horner, Marko, and Mateschitz. A large part of why many of these people are gone is because 20+ years is a long time to stay in 1 team, and the budget cap made it impossible for them all to stay in the same place. Are there any 20+ year leaders at Mclaren?

Newey's disagreements were normal. He stated that this was in his working pihlosophy. Disagreement is not end all be all. He liked to be challenged by the other technical leaders within the team. He said that himself. There's no proof that Newey's proposal would have worked better. That is only your suspicion without evidence. Newey helped make many good cars, but some were not.

I think you're making fairly lazy arguments as well, perhaps drunk off Mclaren's more recent success. Did you make the same arguments in the Vettel era or after Max won in 2021? RB had troubles with the 2nd driver when Adrian Newey was the technical director with full authority. Webber was nowhere towards end of Vettel reign. Gasly experienced the wrath of Adrian Newey directly. Now your trying to claim that Adrian was secretly against Red Bull's philosophy the whole time? What took him so long to quit?

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

You've taken an interesting a specific perspective of that statement, so I'll bypass most of that. I haven't said they are doing it all wrong, nor talked about their previous achievements. They are a different team now to where they were then - even 2 years ago, this much is apparent.

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

Newey is the intereting one though the reports he wanted to leave before his last contract Horner convinced him to stay. Maybe in hindsight now they should have offered him a higher role if it was what he wanted.

But I wonder a little if part of the issue he had was he saw the team changing he commented before what he loved about Red Bull early on was he asked for something, write a business case as to why its needed and it was done money was no object (within reason) I think since Mateschitz passing its almost become a traditional team, where money was a big concern, that Red Bull's parent company became very involved in decision making that they were protected from for years.

Add to the management fallout probably and that was enough .

[mwillems]

It was always my point, but the car is still capable of being very fast in the right hands. And it is very fast.
Compelling? It doesn't matter. It is certainly true of Mclaren and the way they have shape the culture of the team, you don't have to look too hard to look at red Bull to see that people might not want to be there.

I never even alluded to compelling. I am also not able to read minds.

Are you high?

Er, no?

A lot of words for uncompelling arguments.

But we don't have the best drivers, it's a simple fact. Max is the best driver. Mclaren's success has been about every component, not one, this is the team that is leading today because they focussed on building the team, not the car. it's why the comments made about the Mclaren drivers are laughable and misguided.

The best driver is not required to win a championship. Having a great team does not guarantee a championship.

But this is the way many RB fans do indeed talk about it, and the way the team certainly appear to approach it, epitomised by their disregard for Newey's concerns that they were developing a car with flaws that only one driver could handle.

Then, you agree.

[mwillems]

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

RBR won 8x WDC operating in their ways. Twice 4 in a row. Methods and philosophies that were co-signed by Rob Marshall, Jonathan Wheatley, William Courtenay, Adrian Newey, and other recent departures to Mclaren. People that according to you must have been deeply unhappy for 18 years before they figured out where horner kept the keys to get out of the building? What exactly is the argument here? Your making Newey out to be the one guy against the team he hand built with Horner, Marko, and Mateschitz. A large part of why many of these people are gone is because 20+ years is a long time to stay in 1 team, and the budget cap made it impossible for them all to stay in the same place. Are there any 20+ year leaders at Mclaren?

Newey's disagreements were normal. He stated that this was in his working pihlosophy. Disagreement is not end all be all. He liked to be challenged by the other technical leaders within the team. He said that himself. There's no proof that Newey's proposal would have worked better. That is only your suspicion without evidence. Newey helped make many good cars, but some were not.

I think you're making fairly lazy arguments as well, perhaps drunk off Mclaren's more recent success. Did you make the same arguments in the Vettel era or after Max won in 2021? RB had troubles with the 2nd driver when Adrian Newey was the technical director with full authority. Webber was nowhere towards end of Vettel reign. Gasly experienced the wrath of Adrian Newey directly. Now your trying to claim that Adrian was secretly against Red Bull's philosophy the whole time? What took him so long to quit?

Mclaren win a single WCC in more than a decade, and suddenly any non-Mclaren team is doing it all wrong?

You've taken an interesting a specific perspective of that statement, so I'll bypass most of that. I haven't said they are doing it all wrong, nor talked about their previous achievements. They are a different team now to where they were then - even 2 years ago, this much is apparent.

Newey clearly had no reason to leave Red Bull, until certain events, which seemed to coincide with an awful lot of people leaving Suggesting this can only be or must be a normal disagreement is naïve, or at least not being open to the very reasonable possibility that he wasn't comfortable there any more. Given that a host of people were/are leaving, this does seem to lend yet more credence to it.

Newey is the intereting one though the reports he wanted to leave before his last contract Horner convinced him to stay. Maybe in hindsight now they should have offered him a higher role if it was what he wanted.

But I wonder a little if part of the issue he had was he saw the team changing he commented before what he loved about Red Bull early on was he asked for something, write a business case as to why its needed and it was done money was no object (within reason) I think since Mateschitz passing its almost become a traditional team, where money was a big concern, that Red Bull's parent company became very involved in decision making that they were protected from for years.

Add to the management fallout probably and that was enough .

Yeah this is a good point, I'd actually forgotten these issues.
And with the tribunal in Jan 26, this is a long way from being done as this will likely dominate the run up to the new regs.

[AR3-GP]

But why are you focussing on those names and not the fact that the whole paddock has spoken about being awash with the CVs of Red Bull employees?

Because this is gossip disseminated by Zak Brown. Everyone is looking for better job opportunities in F1. We even have a thread where some of our f1t members report on technical transfers: https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16879

If RBR was so torn apart, how have they managed to win 2 races over the almighty MCL39 and actually improve the RB21 when supposedly everyone has fled to other teams? You even said it's the 2nd fastest car with potential to be fastest, remember?

The car is as good as its fastest times. Max isnt superhuman. The car is simply capable of being extremely fast although there is a tendency to pretend otherwise. It's one upgrade away from Mclaren. and its driver should be closer in the drivers championship ready to pounce on any Mclaren mistakes. It's clearly not the fastest, but any suggestion it isnt fast is pure fantasy.

Well how have they managed to pull that off with Zak Brown's fairy tales about all the employees fleeing the ship? Rather than listen to propaganda you can just look. It's not just Christian Horner listening to the echoes of his own voice in MK. RBR is one of the largest teams by mancount in F1.

[mwillems]

But why are you focussing on those names and not the fact that the whole paddock has spoken about being awash with the CVs of Red Bull employees?

Because this is gossip disseminated by Zak Brown. Everyone is looking for better job opportunities in F1. We even have a thread where some of our f1t members report on technical transfers: https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16879

If RBR was so torn apart, how have they managed to win 2 races over the almighty MCL39 and actually improve the RB21 when supposedly everyone has fled to other teams? You even said it's the 2nd fastest car with potential to be fastest, remember?

The car is as good as its fastest times. Max isnt superhuman. The car is simply capable of being extremely fast although there is a tendency to pretend otherwise. It's one upgrade away from Mclaren. and its driver should be closer in the drivers championship ready to pounce on any Mclaren mistakes. It's clearly not the fastest, but any suggestion it isnt fast is pure fantasy.

Well how have they managed to pull that off with Zak Brown's fairy tales about all the employees fleeing the ship? Rather than listen to propaganda you can just look. It's not just Christian Horner listening to the echoes of his own voice in MK. RBR is one of the largest teams by mancount in F1.

It's not Zak Brown peddling conspiracy theories, AR3. Whilst Zak and Toto are not RB best friends, they will certainly take an opportunity to give RB kicking, they don't tend to pull stuff from thin air or outright lie to do so. Suggesting otherwise is based on nothing more than the fact you don't like the sound of it.

https://racingnews365.com/wolff-sides-w ... everywhere

[mwillems]

But so what?

That means the points lost today will mean nothing. The last hope for Max was lost today when McLaren wasn't weakened by the TD about the frontwing.

I see this and find it really strange. He's in a championship fight. Without his mistakes here today and at Jeddah he'd be more than close enough. One upgrade and you can match Mclaren, and we've seen all teams misfire so it's perfectly possible Mclaren might. The points he's thrown away with his poor start and going off track at Jeddah and with his actions today are important. Even if the car doesn't get faster, the Mclarens stand a good chance of getting physical later in the season and he's every chance of mopping up and getting right back in.

What he did today was unprofessional and selfish. Given how the team are struggling to retain personnel, the talk of a poor culture and their struggles with a car that can be driven by no one bar Max, this is exactly the kind of action that will make people doing their best at RB despair, especially those putting time in to give him the best car they can, even if it isn't the fastest today. Already there is an issue retaining the talent.

But you read a comments like yours and the equivalent "write to max" and they just follow on from the vibes at Red Bull, which is that it is all about Max. but it isn't, those brilliant people who've left RB were a big part of the reason Max was where he was. The irony is that his contract has a get out clause tied to points and that was another hatful down the drain today. I don't know if he'll leave, but Aston Martin must look very tempting right now.

In any case. The point I came to make and discuss was the one above. Really disappointing and selfish from Max today and I'm sure not helpful for the team given everything we have just discussed.


I think I'll write Max a letter.

[vorticism]

As it relates, the timing of Newey’s departure with regard to the RB17 project is puzzling. Will it be axed? Last I saw, he was supposed to remain involved with RB outside of F1, with projects like the RB17. If that’s the case then you wouldn’t think he left because the relationship soured, because that wouldn't be fully leaving. Unless there' some contractual element, or even so, wouldn’t that further sour his involvement with RB17? Have to assume Aston Martin will ask him to work on another Valkyrie or RB17 type project while they’ve got him.