2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Badger]

It just seems like a murky issue. Clearly teams have been taking extra engines for years, and I doubt all of those can be attributed to a specific reliability concern at the time of the swap. RB has always been on the limit with their engines and have said that they are this year too. It’s likely they would have risked not taking another engine if quali in Brazil went well, because when you are in the title fight you have to take such risks. But when they went out in Q1 the risk reward for taking another engine changed. The reliability risk over the final 4 races with an old engine is obviously bigger than what you lose from going P17 —> pit lane.

I guess it depends on where the FIA draws the line for a legitimate reliability concern, and what reliability data RB has.

Mekies said it was not a change due to reliability concern. It's going to be interesting to see if they can walk that back.

They may not have had an imminent reliability concern that required an engine swap right there, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have any reliability concern for the final part of the season. I read articles only a couple of weeks ago that stated they were marginal on engines coming from people in the team.

And I don’t know about you but when teams have changed engines in the past and gone above the limit, it hasn’t been my impression that they’ve done so to avoid an imminent engine failure due to a specific reliability issue. It’s more like they’re anticipating future issues and strategically taking a penalty before that happens.

If RB can show that they were marginal on engines for the end of the year then I think there’s precedent for it.

[Valeo]

It wasn't a topic since 2021 and now suddenly it needs additional clarification 3 months before the new regulation set?
Good luck

[f1isgood]

It wasn't a topic since 2021 and now suddenly it needs additional clarification 3 months before the new regulation set?
Good luck

[Matt-A]

It's better that they use thst engine. It's just going in the bin next month otherwise.

[euv2]

It wasn't a topic since 2021 and now suddenly it needs additional clarification 3 months before the new regulation set?
Good luck

There's no chance of anything actually happening. There's a million parameters for reliability, even if one was close to the limit, you can claim that you changed it on grounds on reliability also the other Honda cars have also used additional PUs, so it's not like Red bull are doing something different or using a new PU every other race like Bottas. Historically Honda PUs have not lasted the whole season in these regs, it's not hard to imagine that they are running close on some of them.

Mclaren are free to take new PUs outside cost cap, I'd like to see them start in the pitlane.

[erikejw]

Stella is more likely to adress next season, not this.

Think how many units Honda trashed first season with McLaren 2014.

Now Red Bull will most likely run into PU problems next year since its new.

Imagine the problem it would cause if they would have to count a few millions for each engine towards the budget cap.
It would be a disaster(if they have severe problems).

The other teams are unlikely to find themselves in the same situation.

Politics, politics, politics.

[Dee]

It just seems like a murky issue. Clearly teams have been taking extra engines for years, and I doubt all of those can be attributed to a specific reliability concern at the time of the swap. RB has always been on the limit with their engines and have said that they are this year too. It’s likely they would have risked not taking another engine if quali in Brazil went well, because when you are in the title fight you have to take such risks. But when they went out in Q1 the risk reward for taking another engine changed. The reliability risk over the final 4 races with an old engine is obviously bigger than what you lose from going P17 —> pit lane.

I guess it depends on where the FIA draws the line for a legitimate reliability concern, and what reliability data RB has.

Mekies said it was not a change due to reliability concern. It's going to be interesting to see if they can walk that back.

They can walk that back by saying what Max said when in the car, that the old engine was vibrating a lot.

That's a reliability concern, whether they knew about it before or after doesn't matter.

"The engine had an issue with vibration" is what is going to be written down on the explanation docket.

They also took a penalty for a new engine so they completed what they had to do on track.

Had nothing been said about the engine, then you have an issue, but there was, hence, nothing burger.

[f1isgood]

Stella is more likely to adress next season, not this.

Think how many units Honda trashed first season with McLaren 2014.

Now Red Bull will most likely run into PU problems next year since its new.

Imagine the problem it would cause if they would have to count a few millions for each engine towards the budget cap.
It would be a disaster(if they have severe problems).

The other teams are unlikely to find themselves in the same situation.

Politics, politics, politics.

Red Bull need a good chassis next year to be even in conversation with McLaren. McLaren will likely dominate if Mercedes engine isn't a dud. While I expect Mercedes to be there at the top, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if there are surprises with regard to engines.

Red Bull have likely had a failed upgrade just in Mexico. Quite interestingly, they had a failed upgrade at Jeddah in 2021 as well.

[AR3-GP]

“In fairness, we were a little bit helped in our disadvantage by the VSC, so it has limited a little bit the loss, but we've lost something for sure,” Mekies acknowledged. “If you go a few laps longer in the whole sequence – hard, medium – then maybe at that stage you don't do that final stop.”

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10776127/

If he had been able to stay out for 5 or 6 more laps on those hards, then more would have been possible.

[f1isgood]

“In fairness, we were a little bit helped in our disadvantage by the VSC, so it has limited a little bit the loss, but we've lost something for sure,” Mekies acknowledged. “If you go a few laps longer in the whole sequence – hard, medium – then maybe at that stage you don't do that final stop.”

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10776127/

If he had been able to stay out for 5 or 6 more laps on those hards, then more would have been possible.

They still took a bad strategy. Palmer did some interesting analysis. Not even asking Norris to fight for the win is not a good look.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Stella is more likely to adress next season, not this.

Think how many units Honda trashed first season with McLaren 2014.

Now Red Bull will most likely run into PU problems next year since its new.

Imagine the problem it would cause if they would have to count a few millions for each engine towards the budget cap.
It would be a disaster(if they have severe problems).

The other teams are unlikely to find themselves in the same situation.

Politics, politics, politics.

Red Bull need a good chassis next year to be even in conversation with McLaren. McLaren will likely dominate if Mercedes engine isn't a dud. While I expect Mercedes to be there at the top, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if there are surprises with regard to engines.

Red Bull have likely had a failed upgrade just in Mexico. Quite interestingly, they had a failed upgrade at Jeddah in 2021 as well.

I wonder whether they only had a skeleton crew working on the upgrade so as not to impact 2026 much?

[Badger]

Red Bull need a good chassis next year to be even in conversation with McLaren. McLaren will likely dominate if Mercedes engine isn't a dud. While I expect Mercedes to be there at the top, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if there are surprises with regard to engines.

Red Bull have likely had a failed upgrade just in Mexico. Quite interestingly, they had a failed upgrade at Jeddah in 2021 as well.

I think Merc are in a good position. Factory teams have always held a natural advantage and they probably will again once the engines are unfrozen.

[vorticism]

Mclaren's success has required two large unspoken components: Red Bull's management crisis and Red Bull's prior art. The MCL39 visually is the true RB21. The actual RB21 looks more like an RB20B. Yes, all the teams benefited from seeing the RB18-RB20, as they all adopted those cars' features, but no so expertly as McLaren. Heading into this coming regulations change, McLaren will be in the same boat as everyone else: not having Adrian Newey, who is credited with shaping the previous two regulations changes. So if there's no one to expertly emulate, then McLaren's odds going into 2026 do not seem so great to me. They will be strong, though, as a team, an operation, regardless.

Aston Martin, by the same token, are in a bit of a pickle. While they stand to nail the aero concept the first time around with Newey, if it's too early in their restructuring process, the chassis & operations side might not be able to take advantage of it, which means they'll be potentially giving away the peak aero concept away for free to the other teams, on a car that's not fully set up yet. If by the time Aston Martin do get all of their cogs oiled in that scenario, they won't have the aero concept advantage anymore, as the other teams will have appropriated it by then. So I imagine there must be a bit of pressure in Silverstone, then--some article mentioned Newey was sleeping in the office.

[Farnborough]

Mclaren's success has required two large unspoken components: Red Bull's management crisis and Red Bull's prior art. The MCL39 visually is the true RB21. The actual RB21 looks more like an RB20B. Yes, all the teams benefited from seeing the RB18-RB20, as they all adopted those cars' features, but no so expertly as McLaren. Heading into this coming regulations change, McLaren will be in the same boat as everyone else: not having Adrian Newey, who is credited with shaping the previous two regulations changes. So if there's no one to expertly emulate, then McLaren's odds going into 2026 do not seem so great to me. They will be strong, though, as a team, an operation, regardless.

Aston Martin, by the same token, are in a bit of a pickle. While they stand to nail the aero concept the first time around with Newey, if it's too early in their restructuring process, the chassis & operations side might not be able to take advantage of it, which means they'll be potentially giving away the peak aero concept away for free to the other teams, on a car that's not fully set up yet. If by the time Aston Martin do get all of their cogs oiled in that scenario, they won't have the aero concept advantage anymore, as the other teams will have appropriated it by then. So I imagine there must be a bit of pressure in Silverstone, then--some article mentioned Newey was sleeping in the office.

A good synopsis. With so many changes leading into this next era - personnel, PU, substantial loss of GE interaction, approach to E in overall scheme, moving aero interpretation etc- it would seem difficult to project anything with much certainty.

[selvam_e2002]

Mclaren's success has required two large unspoken components: Red Bull's management crisis and Red Bull's prior art. The MCL39 visually is the true RB21. The actual RB21 looks more like an RB20B. Yes, all the teams benefited from seeing the RB18-RB20, as they all adopted those cars' features, but no so expertly as McLaren. Heading into this coming regulations change, McLaren will be in the same boat as everyone else: not having Adrian Newey, who is credited with shaping the previous two regulations changes. So if there's no one to expertly emulate, then McLaren's odds going into 2026 do not seem so great to me. They will be strong, though, as a team, an operation, regardless.

Aston Martin, by the same token, are in a bit of a pickle. While they stand to nail the aero concept the first time around with Newey, if it's too early in their restructuring process, the chassis & operations side might not be able to take advantage of it, which means they'll be potentially giving away the peak aero concept away for free to the other teams, on a car that's not fully set up yet. If by the time Aston Martin do get all of their cogs oiled in that scenario, they won't have the aero concept advantage anymore, as the other teams will have appropriated it by then. So I imagine there must be a bit of pressure in Silverstone, then--some article mentioned Newey was sleeping in the office.

you forgot the reg change between 2014 to 2020. Newey cannot do much with RB on those time period. It is a team effort not with single person Newey.

I would say Ferrari always there whenever Reg changes.....Let see where the RB in 2026....