2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[PierreW]

Great performance by Max again, salvaging the 5th place when no other driver on the grid could have put this car in the top 10. It was completely undrivable in the wet and Max still managed to survive that and somehow end up scoring points.

Without him and his calm performance, it would have been two races without a point for RB. Look at Tsunoda, again dead last in that tractor. Leclerc and Russel having a nightmare race in a better car prove that the conditions were tough.

[Macklaren]

Seeing his comments in the McLaren thread too I actually think it was a very big compliment to Max - I think he knew Max was probably going to hold Lando up for a while in a car that was struggling.

I think mid race visibility was just atrocious for Lando to get closer. Would have been interesting to see Max's pace when it dried up given his setup if he was up front

[FittingMechanics]

Honestly without the spin at safety car restart, Verstappen was in a good position. Lando would need to overtake him again and Piastri had 10 second penalty.

McLaren probably had pace enough to win but Max does have his moments.

As a McLaren fan I am happy that he spun.

so, red bull was actually a good car in the race, lol.
as a mclaren, mercedes and ferrari (and even some redbull) fans rightfully say )))

Seeing his comments in the McLaren thread too I actually think it was a very big compliment to Max - I think he knew Max was probably going to hold Lando up for a while in a car that was struggling.

It was a compliment for sure. Without the spin it is likely Max tries to keep Norris behind to hold onto P2 that may turn into P1. We know how those fights against Norris tend to do, and with the low downforce setup Max could defend decently against Norris. He did it in the first laps, only losing a position because he went wide.

It's hard to say (obviously) but if a few things fell differently, who knows if this would be another masterful Verstappen win. I wouldn't be surprised. I know it is easy to say the car difference was too big, maybe, but I thought the same in Japan and he won there.

[avantman]

What an embarrassing spin. I am a strong believer in whatever happens, happens for good. So, firstly that spin allowed Hulk to get his podium finally. I always acknowledged his talent but not gonna lie, I was confident he wouldn't gonna get one. But more importantly, I hope a race like that (among many others) will incline him finally to go for a change.

[avantman]

It's hard to say (obviously) but if a few things fell differently, who knows if this would be another masterful Verstappen win. I wouldn't be surprised. I know it is easy to say the car difference was too big, maybe, but I thought the same in Japan and he won there.

No, the car difference was not too big, just 2 seconds at critical stages on a damp/wet track. Just one second on raw ultimate race pace in dry, looking at the final short stint and laps in clear air. Definitely not the biggest difference between these two cars we have seen since Miami last year.
Enjoy the data:


Note, on Max' fastest lap he had a benefit of DRS worth 0.2s

[FittingMechanics]

OK, thanks for the data. I couldn't really follow the data this race.

If that is the case, it was a done deal for a McLaren 1-2.

[Watto]

I think the biggest concern Max would have would be it seems RBR are still struggling to get on top of the car. I think he could take the car being slower if it was predictable it still feels like he has no idea what to expect.



If he was confident they could get on top of them and produce a car he could push with I think he would happily stay. But that seems far from certain right now.

[avantman]

OK, thanks for the data. I couldn't really follow the data this race.

If that is the case, it was a done deal for a McLaren 1-2.

Sorry, I completely forgot about Tsunoda. Even if he is not F1 material driver, cannot drive in wet at all(as we saw in Brazil 2024) on top of the well-known fact the car is built for Max and only Max enjoys driving it. I thought Tsunoda's laptime data would be interesting especially for people who thought Max was not probably driving fast enough at certain stages, particularly when it was still wet.

[Sergej]

the bottom line of this race is that it's extremely worrying that they had to run a Monza downforce level (said by Horner) in order to manage the understeer

[venkyhere]

We all knew beforehand, on friday FP2 itself, looking at that Monza wing being used in Siverstone : What if it's a wet race ? Isn't it a big gamble ? In fact, i had been posting since friday FP2, about how this may come back to bite if it's a wet race.

And guess what ? it was a big gamble. Nothing surprising. Traction out of slow corners, rotating the car for slow corners - it's been an inherent mechanical problem that's part of the car's DNA, and would have happened in low grip conditions, even with bigger wings in play. The car was setup for top speed, but it still needs traction out of the previous corner, to claim that top speed.

I am surprised that Max spun only once (and I am not being patronizing) - Monza wing in the wet, in medium/high speed corners of silverstone ? Has to be a joke, and they knew the risks when they made such a choice.

[TNTHead]

Verstappen said post race that they did not expect so much rain, but that the weather forecast changed overnight, so it indeed was a gamble not working well for them.

[euv2]

Verstappen said post race that they did not expect so much rain, but that the weather forecast changed overnight, so it indeed was a gamble not working well for them.

It actually changed late on race day; it was predicted to be just 5% chance of rain during race hours with showers before the race but then the rain kept coming for another 2 hours. It was a decent gamble that didn't pay off, VER did exceptionally well to get P5 despite the spins and runoffs, watching his onboard vs the MCL was like 2 cars driving in full wet vs inters.

The biggest takeaway from the race for me was still the McLarens unbelievable tyre management, the tyre just never falls out of the working windows, it's like magic. Rain? no problem the tyres are hot enough to provide solid grip, drying conditions on inters? no problem the tyre doesn't overheat and degrade and we already know how exceptional they are in hot conditions. The only time the other teams are a match is during cool conditions, otherwise the MCL mostly smashes the competition on utilising tyres.

It's kind of baffling that the opposing teams haven't got a clue about what they are doing with their tyres, surely, they've must've tried paying good money for the engineers working on this. At this point I'm expecting their tyre management to carry over into next years cars.

[venkyhere]

The biggest takeaway from the race for me was still the McLarens unbelievable tyre management, the tyre just never falls out of the working windows, it's like magic. Rain? no problem the tyres are hot enough to provide solid grip, drying conditions on inters? no problem the tyre doesn't overheat and degrade and we already know how exceptional they are in hot conditions. The only time the other teams are a match is during cool conditions, otherwise the MCL mostly smashes the competition on utilising tyres.

It's kind of baffling that the opposing teams haven't got a clue about what they are doing with their tyres, surely, they've must've tried paying good money for the engineers working on this. At this point I'm expecting their tyre management to carry over into next years cars.

They have some kind of mechanical feedback loop (without moving devices, based on expansion/contraction of materials with low specific heat present in the 'air pathways') such that the hot air path from caliper/brakes to wheel rim 'opens up a lot' in cold conditions and 'closes down to a trickle' in hot conditions. In other words, their 'trick', according to my guess, is a purely mechanical control system without external input, that can control the heat exchanged between brakes and wheel rim, using the temperature of the wheel like the gate voltage of a transistor.

[Waz]

I am confused. We've been told for 2 years now that the car has a very strong front end that other drivers can't live with.

Now it has so much understeer that it needs a Monza spec rear wing to balance.

If true, can we stop the bs narratives narrative about the car development only focusing on Max?

And... What is Tsunodas issue now then? Other than proving Horner and Marko correct for not promoting him.

And seriously, how long is Wache going to hang on to his job?

[avantman]

It's very naive to assume it would've been any different in dry and it was just unlucky it was not and a gamble didn't work out.
It WAS in fact dry in the end and as the data shows, they were a second a lap slower even on low fuel. On high fuel it would probably be worse.