2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[PierreW]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It’s a dull season, with no wheel to wheel racing, compounded by us having to endure a lacklustre duel between two very boring and plain Macca drivers, who have no real rivalry. Inevitable that anyone who brings excitement or controversy will take the limelight. The season is boring, and both championships are Macca’s. Max is F1 right now, and why every team would sign him, and why RB should do everything they can to keep him

Yes, it's true, only Max is making the season interesting near the top. Yesterday it was all about him with Red Bull agressive strategy.

It's a pity the tyres allocation do not allow for more possibilities of strategy and don't reward agressivity.

[mwillems]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It's one of the very few times I've spoken about the RB situation

I came to talk about why I thought yesterday's actions are significant, but various defeatist opinions say that apparently the car is slow so yesterday doesnt matter, there's no hope, its understandable that Max might drive in to someone because hes unhappy, if he doesnt try then its not import because Max doesnt care... because Max is of course the centre of the universe.

Until hes not.

RB will always be a big team, but let's be frank, the car is not the biggest issue.

This thread seems to have mirrored a little of the RB PR lines if I'm honest.

[avantman]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It’s a dull season, with no wheel to wheel racing, compounded by us having to endure a lacklustre duel between two very boring and plain Macca drivers, who have no real rivalry. Inevitable that anyone who brings excitement or controversy will take the limelight. The season is boring, and both championships are Macca’s. Max is F1 right now, and why every team would sign him, and why RB should do everything they can to keep him

Yeah, exactly. This year he is to F1 what Senna was in '93 basically making a season worth watching. Very similarly looking season that was to this current one. Two drivers in utterly dominant car never racing each other, just driving in circles. Norris took a role of Hill, Piastri is a new Prost. My only wish for this season is: can wet get more wet races please? Because it has been too dry so far. Just to make something we could remember and talk about after.

[organic]

Verstappen admits on social media his move on Russell was driven by frustration and "shouldn't have happened"

[avantman]

It's nice to see that at least he didn't apologize.

[PierreW]

what would F1 do without Max ? look at this very thread. mclaren, ferrari and hamilton fans are more interested in max than their own teams and drivers.
what ringo suggests is an example of wishful thinking, nothing more than that.

It's one of the very few times I've spoken about the RB situation

I came to talk about why I thought yesterday's actions are significant, but various defeatist opinions say that apparently the car is slow so yesterday doesnt matter, there's no hope, its understandable that Max might drive in to someone because hes unhappy, if he doesnt try then its not import because Max doesnt care... because Max is of course the centre of the universe.

Until hes not.

RB will always be a big team, but let's be frank, the car is not the biggest issue.

This thread seems to have mirrored a little of the RB PR lines if I'm honest.

RB will always be a big team the way Ferrari is. It does not guarantee performance or title chances. And there are even more at risk than Ferrari with their PU adventure.

They seem to be going into a Binotto phase the way they are run. The car isn't fast enough, and has a too narrow window to perform well. And it isn't getting better with the time, it's getting arguably worse.

The failed developement, the failed setup, the failed updates, the failed pit stops, releasing Max car into Antonelli, the missed startegy calls, the hard tyre choice here which was unthinkable even for Ferrari, the circus around the second driver.

Binotto was sacked mainly I think because Ferrari was looking like a joke in the eyes of the public, which can't happen for a luxury race car brand. RB has less pressure for that, but the path is not good.

[organic]

It's nice to see that at least he didn't apologize.

As close to one you will get from Max though.

[Sergej]

[avantman]

I couldn't figure out who's taken Sporting director job from Wheatley this year and here is google's answer:
In 2025, Red Bull Racing does not have a traditional "Sporting Director" role as it did with Jonathan Wheatley. Instead, the responsibilities of the sporting director have been distributed among three individuals: Gianpiero Lambiase (Head of Racing), Steve Knowles (Head of Sporting Regulations) and another person taking on the operational side.

So, it could only be either Lambiase or Knowles who took that decision to order Max let Russell through. And based on Lambiase "my advice" and "these are the rules" remarks, I tend to believe it was him.
It's shocking really. How a casual f1 fan Rosberg could get that all immediately right calling Russell was wrong immediately because he drove into Max forcing him out, but red bull top staff could not having a couple of extra laps at their disposal? That's shocking stuff really. I could not imagine Johnathan ever making such mistake.
They've been making very big, costly or potentially costly operational mistakes or mistakes on strategy almost every race this year. Only Jeddah and Imola were mistake-free race weekends, but those were also very straightforward one stop races.

[Xyz22]

Staying out was probably the best option but they couldn't knew how slow Leclerc was going to be in the last 6 laps lmao.
He would have still finished P4 behind Russell probably.

The 3 stop strategy was a master stroke though. They realized immediately that in terms of deg there was no comparison but the RB21 "peak" performance was actually good so switching t o a 3 stop at least put a bit of pressure on McLaren. RB is still by far the best team on track.

[FittingMechanics]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

[PierreW]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

Why don't they factor in that it would upset him and put him on the brink? They don't know him?

[kurtj]

Asking Max to give the place back (even if it was wrong) was motivated by trying to avoid a penalty. They judged that the risk of getting a penalty (even a wrong one) was higher than just conceding the position. If there was 30% of chance of getting a 10 second penalty which loses you 10 points, that is a worse outcome than losing 2 points with 100% chance.

I'm sure if it was not 2-3 laps before the end after a SC that they wouldn't have asked him to give over the position.

Why don't they factor in that it would upset him and put him on the brink? They don't know him?

This is 11th year that Max is racing in F1, how about him growing up and learn to handle these situations better? The people that sit on the pitwall are also human beings, operating under similar pressure to the driver and trying to make the best possible decision given the shortest amount of time available for such decisions. Have some respect for those that make F1 happen, not just for a petulant driver.

[avantman]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

[Xyz22]

RB is still by far the best team on track.

Not this year. Before this year undoubtedly so.

As for a masterstroke with regards to three stop strategy, you miss a very important point. That strategy put them in a position they were after the safety car. The only car on the track, which ultimately costed them the podium. So how on earth could it be the right one? Just unlucky? Just wrong.
And even If they knew they could only fit hard in case of late SC, then why stop for the 3rd stop (to put on not even new but used soft!) as early as lap 47 out of 66 ? Max spent 17 laps on brand new medium and was supposed to somehow put Mclaren under pressure having to drive 19 laps stint on 3 laps used soft?

Not only Piastri was already too far, even Norris was 4.5s ahead and could not be really put at danger of undercut.
It was a pure gamble. Like lets stop now and hope Mclaren do 4s stop, and hope Max could be able to hang on for 19 laps. How often do Mclaren make such poor stops anyway?
They refused to take an easy chance to undercut the Championship leader in Monaco to take P3 and now gambled trying to force near impossible undercut in Spain? makes very little sense. No, they do not operate like the best team on the track this year. They operate like gamlbers hoping for miracles, rather than a team truly fighting for this championship.
I don't think three stopper was better, faster strategy, although it made the race look somewhat entertaining for a while indeed. Otherwise it would've been dead boring, although Max would've taken his prize for 3rd.

It was for Red Bull because the RB 21 had very good "peak" performance, they just couldn't compete in terms of deg over an entire stint (for a 2 stopper strategy). Of course for Ferrari a 3 stop would have been completely useless because they were just slower by a significant margin.

Agreed that a 2 stop strategy would have been safer on paper and especially considering a SC. I still think that a 3 stop was the absolutely right call because it was the only option to put a bit of pressure on Piastri and Norris.