2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[venkyhere]

Had been away for a week on emergency, caught up with the race and this thread. Thankfully, haven't read any 'online media'.
The race was like watching the 2006 football world cup. The parallels couldn't be closer. Zidane played like a genius in the knockout stages, got the team into the finals, the pressure was immense, yet played well in the final until a point when he simply "snapped" when provoked. Max drove like a genius until race9, with an inferior car, got into the WDC fight, drove a superb race (D-o-D deserving) by absorbing the extra pitstop into race pace, but when the pressure on him became insurmountable (hard tyres for restart, should not have pitted at all), he 'snapped' when provoked (not so kosher moves by LeClerc and Russel post restart).
I don't think I want to comment on anything 'analytical' about the details of the incident(s). The man 'snapped'. I am a big fan of both the footballer and the driver (and will continue to be) vide the the sheer talent ; but it is professional sport. Unprofessionalism cannot be justified.

[tinuva]

What mystery would this be

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2025/06/ ... in-canada/

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[ispano6]

Just goes to show the effects of losing a handful of the team's difference makers. Max can't make up for the loss of chief mechanical engineer, pitwall and pitstop crew members.

[Farnborough]

Just goes to show the effects of losing a handful of the team's difference makers. Max can't make up for the loss of chief mechanical engineer, pitwall and pitstop crew members.

It is though, always the process by which the next generation of successful people are found, trained, evolved and evaluated.

Succession planning, building people skills over previous period, those appointed by the previous successful encumbants, hand picked, evaluated and positioned to gain experience is what builds ongoing legacy to each team.

There's some big shoes to fill certainly, but those successful personnel just departed also replaced someone else within the F1 hierarchy of technical performers.

Things do move on, judgement will be made.

This car from this team as it now exists is still likely to be the second fastest in pace after McL over a season (we can't ultimately judge yet) taken from leading driver pace.

There are teams that have never got to that level with all they've thrown at it ! Mercedes have yet to beat them this rules set. It’s hardly the failure people keep projecting.

[Zhouvinazzi]

Trying to be as objective about the Max tap on Russel as possible, while obviously he’d had enough and succumbed to his emotions (emotions which also make him one of the best drivers in history) it was also obvious that he wasn’t looking to take either himself or George out of the race, let alone to endanger George with a serious crash. More of a “slap” than a “punch” if that makes sense. Obviously it’s not acceptable behavior but some of the overreactions I find are so not in the spirit of the sport.

[FittingMechanics]

Trying to be as objective about the Max tap on Russel as possible, while obviously he’d had enough and succumbed to his emotions (emotions which also make him one of the best drivers in history) it was also obvious that he wasn’t looking to take either himself or George out of the race, let alone to endanger George with a serious crash. More of a “slap” than a “punch” if that makes sense. Obviously it’s not acceptable behavior but some of the overreactions I find are so not in the spirit of the sport.

Hitting other drivers (even if it is a slap) is not in the spirit of the sport, much more than any overreaction.

[Bill]

What mystery would this be

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2025/06/ ... in-canada/

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Yuki: “But other than that, in my perspective, it’s more towards the team and engineering.”

I call it the "royal jelly".
I had a theory on why the second car was always problematic. Mainly due to ignorance about how to use the car from that side of the garage. Only the #1car gets the knowledge and tools.
Redbull will need Yuki's car to be a front runner in Canada, so they have to feed him some of that royal jelly to change him from just a little worker bee, to one of the queens. It may be knowledge on a setup direction, it may be an adjustment, it may even be a different variation of a part. You never can really tell.
Just a theory, so let's see how he goes in Montreal.

he needs an update more than anything the car was chewing tires.,he should be 3 to 4 tenth slower than max in the race and 6 tenth in quali but in spain he was 2 second slower in the race totally hopeless and lost even slower than sauber which is another level.

[FittingMechanics]

I don't think what Yuki will try is anything magical. It's likely he wants some other setup direction and they'll let him has his way instead of following Max.

He'll probably struggle again.

[TimW]

Trying to be as objective about the Max tap on Russel as possible, while obviously he’d had enough and succumbed to his emotions (emotions which also make him one of the best drivers in history) it was also obvious that he wasn’t looking to take either himself or George out of the race, let alone to endanger George with a serious crash. More of a “slap” than a “punch” if that makes sense. Obviously it’s not acceptable behavior but some of the overreactions I find are so not in the spirit of the sport.

Hitting other drivers (even if it is a slap) is not in the spirit of the sport, much more than any overreaction.

I think he attempted (and miserably failed) to re-create the situation of the turn 1 incident with George. 'If he is allowed to do that, than I am allowed as well and George will need to give the place back'. A short circuit of his brain. I don't think he was intending to take George out. But still I think he got of lightly.

Most penalties are way too low in my opinion anyway. Penalties should be feared, not rules that can be played.

[Farnborough]

The brutal reality is, that there's only three drivers currently capable of bring either or WDC / WCC if we talk in definitive development terms.

Lando, Oscar & Max are the only ones "proven" to develop, lead and aquire championships .... defined by those fully recorded successful campaigns so far from 2022 within this rules set.

Don't even joke about those things

yes I wrote with a bit of nuance to see if anyone was reading through that. The record for this rule set will critically show exactly that through hard result and names on trophy.

The flip side though, and that against criticism of this team and its choices, is that observers miss the point that no team other than McL has been able to step up to the plate with consistency in success during this era. Many laud their favourite driver / team combination as being better in so many esoteric measures, but fail to acknowledge they aren't a match as yet for this RB team, with or without critical personal still working there. The doomsayers are many (often on some moral pedestal about in team personnel) which is laughable against cold hard engineering performance.

[FittingMechanics]

Trying to be as objective about the Max tap on Russel as possible, while obviously he’d had enough and succumbed to his emotions (emotions which also make him one of the best drivers in history) it was also obvious that he wasn’t looking to take either himself or George out of the race, let alone to endanger George with a serious crash. More of a “slap” than a “punch” if that makes sense. Obviously it’s not acceptable behavior but some of the overreactions I find are so not in the spirit of the sport.

Hitting other drivers (even if it is a slap) is not in the spirit of the sport, much more than any overreaction.

I think he attempted (and miserably failed) to re-create the situation of the turn 1 incident with George. 'If he is allowed to do that, than I am allowed as well and George will need to give the place back'. A short circuit of his brain. I don't think we was intending to take George out. But still I think he got of lightly.

Most penalties are way too low in my opinion anyway. Penalties should be feared, not rules that can be played.

If that was his thinking I'm sure he would have come out and immediately said I was proving a point, that wheel banging gets you a position.

[ringo]

I don't think what Yuki will try is anything magical. It's likely he wants some other setup direction and they'll let him has his way instead of following Max.

He'll probably struggle again.

I think he has been trying his way and it has not worked from Suzuka onward. Notice his quote: “But other than that, in my perspective, it’s more towards the team and engineering.”
He may be saying now the engineers and team will take over the setup direction fully. Or this may even be more sacrificing of his season to improve the car further for Max by trying some stuff for the races ahead. It's not very clear.
But what is really needed is for Yuki to be in the running with the other drivers at the front to shield Max from overpressure.

[Magistos]

See - I took the exact opposite meaning from that quote - that he is saying the team and engineering have to bring more driveability to the car. That he's gotten as far as he can with his abilities and setup, and the rest is up to the team researching and the engineering team fabricating and fitting something, or realizing something that can help in his setup.

[Matt-A]

In my perspective that comment relates specifically to the simulator. The article suggests that whatever he will try in Canada he will only test on the car and not beforehand in the simulator:

"“The simulator itself, in my perspective, is more towards the team, to something that we want to try on the track,” he explained."

Suggests to me that any sim time is reserved for Max or the car concept that Max wants.

[ispano6]

He just means that the simulator isn't truly representative of the actual car on track so it's more for the engineers and team to set up the car based on the known settings and parameters of the chassis from a theoretical perspective. Yuki is saying he wants the team to recognize what settings or characteristics in previous track outings showed him extracting the most out of the car. They've had days when they've moved away from a good set up and vice-versa. If he hasn't already, it may require Max to shed some light or provide some pointers to Yuki, or that Yuki needs to study footage and data of the fundamental differences between his and Max's driving, particularly driving line, braking points, and steering inputs.

Yuki still isn't one with the car, he can't predict what it'll do if he pushes it. He drives a clean line and it's slow. He's wary of getting close to the limit because the car will just step out if he overdrives it. The tyres getting chewed up could mean that the set up is too stiff and needs more compliance like the Mclaren cars, especially for medium and low speed corners. Still, the complaint has been low-grip from both drivers. It's like ice-skating, except that Max is like a pro-figure/speed skater and Yuki is a hockey player.

Marko was quoted as saying there won't be any major developments for the rest of the year and that there will only be small tweaks. It's surprising that Red Bull have not brought a V shaped rear wing that many teams down the grid have, perhaps this is an area they still can develop.