2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[euv2]

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.

Yeah, a feedback loop definitely seems most plausible but the materials needed for this sort of expansion/contraction and how much at which temperature ranges is definitely a bit of wizardry from MCL. I wonder how much temperate regulation their system allows them, like is 5°C enough for this level of tyre control or is it something more like 10-15°C. It looks like they always try to maintain the tyre in peak operating window, also RBR's solution seems to have been delayed now, perhaps still looking for answers.

[avantman]

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?

That's just a narrative , agenda at this point pushed by the same suspects and British media. They keep re-quoting Albon's interview from few years back where he was reffering to RBR 2019 and 2020 cars - the only cars he had an opportunity to drive. Previous generation RBR cars were very very different and it was very easy to see how oversteery and 'on the nose' they've been on most occasions. From 2022 onwards next gen cars have never been like that. But how could anyone explain then why can Max be head and shoulders above his teammates, all of them, if not for a car being very sharp, oversteery and 'on the nose'? You would then have to admit the guy is a genius we haven't seen since Senna and Schumacher, which is of course very painful thing to do naturally.

Truly knowledgeable observers see things very differently. I really liked Rosberg's comments made during FP session in Barcelona this year, where he was trackside expert at Sky. He explained everything very well, talking on how much understeer Max had in that car, which he could only tame it by mechanical compomises that makes car very on the edge, which Max had to balance on all the time. Nico sounded very, very impressed watching Max from the side of the track. If only someone could find that piece and put it here.
It was the same at Suzuka and China this year - massive very noticeable understeer in slow and medium speed corners that anyone could see; and even through the high speed esses at Suzuka even with much lower DF setup relative to Mclaren. Austria....pretty much everywhere, even Jeddah.
If people actually listen to Lawson and Tsunoda comments, instead of listening to all the tools talking about how oversteery RBR car is, none of them blamed loose rear or oversteer, I think once. It was either understeer or very small overational window that car has which they find very hard (or barely possible for them) to hit.
If these new gen RBR cars have ever been built for Max, they failed miserably. All of them came out of the factory very understeery.

[Bill]

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?

That's just a narrative , agenda at this point pushed by the same suspects and British media. They keep re-quoting Albon's interview from few years back where he was reffering to RBR 2019 and 2020 cars - the only cars he had an opportunity to drive. Previous generation RBR cars were very very different and it was very easy to see how oversteery and 'on the nose' they've been on most occasions. From 2022 onwards next gen cars have never been like that. But how could anyone explain then why can Max be head and shoulders above his teammates, all of them, if not for a car being very sharp, oversteery and 'on the nose'? You would then have to admit the guy is a genius we haven't seen since Senna and Schumacher, which is of course very painful thing to do naturally.

Truly knowledgeable observers see things very differently. I really liked Rosberg's comments made during FP session in Barcelona this year, where he was trackside expert at Sky. He explained everything very well, talking on how much understeer Max had in that car, which he could only tame it by mechanical compomises that makes car very on the edge, which Max had to balance on all the time. Nico sounded very, very impressed watching Max from the side of the track. If only someone could find that piece and put it here.
It was the same at Suzuka and China this year - massive very noticeable understeer in slow and medium speed corners that anyone could see; and even through the high speed esses at Suzuka even with much lower DF setup relative to Mclaren. Austria....pretty much everywhere, even Jeddah.
If people actually listen to Lawson and Tsunoda comments, instead of listening to all the tools talking about how oversteery RBR car is, none of them blamed loose rear or oversteer, I think once. It was either understeer or very small overational window that car has which they find very hard (or barely possible for them) to hit.
If these new gen RBR cars have ever been built for Max, they failed miserably. All of them came out of the factory very understeery.

people are confusing ground effect cars with car of the past which have much more development window

[Waz]

Wache has said himself that they focus on the front end. I personally found it strange, because I have read plenty on here in the car threads about ground effect being more inclined to understeer because of where the Centre of Pressure is, and that there is limited area to move it forward.

I know a lot is made about Newey leaving, but if you look closer, the cars have had quite a different characteristic since Dan Fallows left. I genuinely believe he was hamstrung at Aston Martin with the Mercedes wind tunnel that AM only had access to on weekends.

It would be good to get him back into the Technical team again to reverse the skills drain.

[Bill]

f1 is about downforce the mclaren has a little drag but good downforce which ultimately make them quick .the redbull of past has good downforce draggy but were quick.

[organic]

Very nuanced bill

[TeamKoolGreen]

Max will take a year off sometime between now and the next 3-5 years. Almost guaranteed.

He recently ruled out a sabbatical in an interview though

Yep last thing I see it Max taking a year off.

I think retiring when the current contract ends his a very real possibility I can see him wanting to do some GT racing more full time while he is still young enough to, he's too much a racing but to take a year off now

His sabbatical talk was about taking a year off from F1. Not a year off from all forms racing.

Especially with these cringy 50% Formula Formula E cars coming up

[Watto]

He recently ruled out a sabbatical in an interview though

Yep last thing I see it Max taking a year off.

I think retiring when the current contract ends his a very real possibility I can see him wanting to do some GT racing more full time while he is still young enough to, he's too much a racing but to take a year off now

His sabbatical talk was about taking a year off from F1. Not a year off from all forms racing.

Especially with these cringy 50% Formula Formula E cars coming up

My point too was I can see Max wanting to do some GT racing where he has his own team before he's past his prime that time scale is 3-5 years don't know it matters that much the direction F1 is heading. I think his interest in other categories I pretty genuine, and I think he would want to have a serious look at it if he headed that way. I think if he feels he has had enough of F1 and done all he can do it will be retire from F1 and race elsewhere without any real intention of moving back. There are plenty of other catagories I think he could go into

[vorticism]

Does anyone have a list of the managers who left RBR over the past couple seasons? Maybe we'll never know the full story of what happened within RBR but it seems odd that so many would leave while the team was winning. A contest of egos that got out of hand? It seems the exodus has had the unfortunate side effect of throwing the other ~thousand teammates within RBR under the bus.

Not sure if Newey will strike gold again in 2026 in what will be his first (!) season with AMR. The 2026 regs book is very specific, more than ever. Then again it's a simultaneous major engine & aero change this time* so who knows.

*Not sure when this happened last. Maybe 1995 was the closest equivalent. 3.5 to 3.0 L, ~800 hp reduced to ~700 hp, and big changes to diffuser (39" to 12" wide), wings, floor specs (+2" ride height, addition of step plane), big DF reduction. That said, Benetton did win both '94 and '95.

[Paa]

Many high level employees left Red Bill over past years, but this is kind of normal I guess.

What is strange to me is a complete lack of high-level "brain import". Horner used to be really good manager in a sense of putting together a top-level team.
But it seems that there are no high level newcomers anymore. They try to replace everybody internally.

Getting people from other teams have so many advantages for so many reasons, they should do it from time to time,.even if all is good, but they are not really doing it.

I wonder why. Is it because of the lack of intent from Red Bull? Or there is will,.but people don't want to go there for whatever reason?

I can only suspect,.that it is Horner trying to consolidate his position within the team by promoting his men internally, I guess to make them loyal? Or to handle low morale/discontent within the team.

But it is clearly not enough.