2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

[f1isgood]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes.

When was the last time the Honda PU actually gave a visible telemetry speed upgrade?

[venkyhere]

Considering the unpredictability hovering above the last 2 race weekends, this meme is just for laughs, don't take it seriously :

[Badger]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Max was significantly down on SL speed in Vegas vs Merc and McLaren, in the range of 5 kph. I'd argue 3 main reasons. Firstly he was running slightly more drag, secondly there is no "spicy PU" (just a fresh PU running the normal settings, the power gain is quite marginal), and lastly the Merc PU excels in the cold temperatures of Vegas. They've had insane SL speed every year there, it just seems to bring out a few extra HP relative to the competition for them.

Tsunoda with the same rear wing minus a gurney flap, and likely a bit less front wing, was pretty much in line with the Merc.

[AR3-GP]

Track temp in Qatar last year was very mild. It could be 2-3 degrees warmer this year, but still night conditions.


https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula- ... nformation

[Gillian]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Afaik Honda PU's never did loose much power during its lifecycle, in contrary to the Mercedes PU up to 2021.

[venkyhere]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Max was significantly down on SL speed in Vegas vs Merc and McLaren, in the range of 5 kph. I'd argue 3 main reasons. Firstly he was running slightly more drag, secondly there is no "spicy PU" (just a fresh PU running the normal settings, the power gain is quite marginal), and lastly the Merc PU excels in the cold temperatures of Vegas. They've had insane SL speed every year there, it just seems to bring out a few extra HP relative to the competition for them.

Tsunoda with the same rear wing minus a gurney flap, and likely a bit less front wing, was pretty much in line with the Merc.

More cold air => more dense, more oxygen through the intake plenum for given velocity of air ; but the ICE can't produce more power just from more oxygen alone, because fuelling is limited anyway; otherwise the design of ICE is suboptimal for 'regular' air temperatures like 25-35C. Maybe the colder air increases the thermal efficiency of intercoolers, turbos, MGU-H etc, but the teams reduce the 'cooling intake' to squeeze out every ounce of drag advantage (ie they will calculate the ducting area for engine cover/brakes etc very precisely and wont open them up even 1sq.cm more than necessary).

Nevertheless, here is a comparison pic of wing levels from raceday :



Purely from eyeballing :
FW : SF25 < RB21 < W16 < McL39
RW : SF25 < McL39 < RB21 < W16

- The Mercedes RW, even though it has more 'spoon' and more 'apparent frontal area', is built in a 'stacked' manner, like the front wings, with large slot gap (compared to others) between the mainplane and flap - I don't have enough aero knowledge to infer whether this reduces drag (making the downforce vector closer to vertical, compared to the others whose vector might be leaning more rearwards) and results in less top speed penalty for the given downforce level.

OR

- Maybe such 'low-base-downforce' levels make the bodywork (engine cover, sidepod, severity of the floor edge vortices) have a bigger share of the total drag, and the difference in these things across the cars are playing a role in determining top speed.

OR

- Maybe the floor itself has vast differences across teams, and the way the air exits the diffuser, which then gets energized by the beam wing(s) and then interacts with the rear wing , has enough differences across teams, to have differently shaped overall downforce v overall drag profiles such that when all teams slap on the biggest wings, one team has lowest drag and when all teams slap on the smallest wings, another team has the lowest drag.

Suffice to say that it's very difficult to discern which car will have highest top speed just by eyeballing, when visible differences in wing levels are so subtle. If we bring DRS-ON into the query, then it gets more complex.

[Jdn1327]

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Max was significantly down on SL speed in Vegas vs Merc and McLaren, in the range of 5 kph. I'd argue 3 main reasons. Firstly he was running slightly more drag, secondly there is no "spicy PU" (just a fresh PU running the normal settings, the power gain is quite marginal), and lastly the Merc PU excels in the cold temperatures of Vegas. They've had insane SL speed every year there, it just seems to bring out a few extra HP relative to the competition for them.

Tsunoda with the same rear wing minus a gurney flap, and likely a bit less front wing, was pretty much in line with the Merc.

More cold air => more dense, more oxygen through the intake plenum for given velocity of air ; but the ICE can't produce more power just from more oxygen alone, because fuelling is limited anyway; otherwise the design of ICE is suboptimal for 'regular' air temperatures like 25-35C. Maybe the colder air increases the thermal efficiency of intercoolers, turbos, MGU-H etc, but the teams reduce the 'cooling intake' to squeeze out every ounce of drag advantage (ie they will calculate the ducting area for engine cover/brakes etc very precisely and wont open them up even 1sq.cm more than necessary).

Nevertheless, here is a comparison pic of wing levels from raceday :

https://i.ibb.co/zHRRgFjP/Las-Vegas2025-wing-levels.png

Purely from eyeballing :
FW : SF25 < RB21 < W16 < McL39
RW : SF25 < McL39 < RB21 < W16

- The Mercedes RW, even though it has more 'spoon' and more 'apparent frontal area', is built in a 'stacked' manner, like the front wings, with large slot gap (compared to others) between the mainplane and flap - I don't have enough aero knowledge to infer whether this reduces drag (making the downforce vector closer to vertical, compared to the others whose vector might be leaning more rearwards) and results in less top speed penalty for the given downforce level.

OR

- Maybe such 'low-base-downforce' levels make the bodywork (engine cover, sidepod, severity of the floor edge vortices) have a bigger share of the total drag, and the difference in these things across the cars are playing a role in determining top speed.

OR

- Maybe the floor itself has vast differences across teams, and the way the air exits the diffuser, which then gets energized by the beam wing(s) and then interacts with the rear wing , has enough differences across teams, to have differently shaped overall downforce v overall drag profiles such that when all teams slap on the biggest wings, one team has lowest drag and when all teams slap on the smallest wings, another team has the lowest drag.

Suffice to say that it's very difficult to discern which car will have highest top speed just by eyeballing, when visible differences in wing levels are so subtle. If we bring DRS-ON into the query, then it gets more complex.

Was this a case of the low downforce circuit suting this car or just Max's brilliance at extracting every bit of performance he can. I think Ted Kravitz asked Max this question.

[Cassius]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

I did see it as well. I think they added df between Friday and Saturday. A gurney flap was added on the rearwing and maybe they changed the angle as well.

It showed in the race as Max often had the fastest 1st and 2nd sectors while on Friday, he was fast in s3.

[AR3-GP]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Max was significantly down on SL speed in Vegas vs Merc and McLaren, in the range of 5 kph. I'd argue 3 main reasons. Firstly he was running slightly more drag, secondly there is no "spicy PU" (just a fresh PU running the normal settings, the power gain is quite marginal), and lastly the Merc PU excels in the cold temperatures of Vegas. They've had insane SL speed every year there, it just seems to bring out a few extra HP relative to the competition for them.

Tsunoda with the same rear wing minus a gurney flap, and likely a bit less front wing, was pretty much in line with the Merc.

Tsunoda had the rocketship. I'm surprised that a gurney flap would account for such a large difference in straight line speed. It's almost unbelievable. In clean air he was 10km/h above Max on the back straight.

The speed trace between T3 and T5 is also strange. Verstappen goes to full throttle sooner, but Tsunoda's acceleration is incredible. Tsunoda's speed traces look the way Verstappen's did in Brazil. Leaping off the corners. Verstappen's straight line speed traces in Las Vegas look noticeably inferior.

The gap between them on the back straight closes a little bit towards the end of the race, but into T1 and into T5 Tsunoda has several km/h advantage from start to finish.

I think there are still some question marks about which PU was used and maybe even the effect of the floors on the straight line speed.

[Farnborough]

Also they better run that Honda PU hard. Nothing to lose really.

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

My read of that PU Monza ? was that it was run full bleed for the race, withdrawn then specifically to facilitate dismantling and assessment, to then better predict just how much they could push the LH "spicy" PU in taking that into margins that hadn't before been used at in general service.
Mercedes PU strategy had it seems always metered out highest power delivery occasions, that to best deploy it over intended life, this action was to examine just how much it could squeeze those extended events, that by detailed catalogue of what effects they recorded from the sacrificed PU. That in depth report not available from in service inspection routine and conventional deployment.
Effectively, no higher state of tune, but answering the question of just how many "push" laps could they put on it over and above their accepted convention. Toto obviously baited that notional PU in the psychology of season end, whether it gave advantage or not !

[ME4ME]

One would hope that after 10 years of these PU regulations and with only 2 races to go that all PU manufacturers have sufficient test-bench to real-world fault & fatigue correlation that they can predicablity run their units in a higher output state with tolerable risk levels.

I was reading Racefans.net transcript of Norris & Verstappens race communications and was wondering if GP told Max to turn down the engine on lap 47. From what I understand the regulations do allow for engines to be turned down, but not turned back up. But I don't know if the mentioned mode is just a ERS adjustment. Anyone who's into Red Bulls terminology?
https://www.racefans.net/2025/11/25/hes ... erstappen/

[Sieper]

Max set the fastest in the last lap of the race. Unlikely even ERS was set down. Maybe they saved it up?

[Farnborough]

One would hope that after 10 years of these PU regulations and with only 2 races to go that all PU manufacturers have sufficient test-bench to real-world fault & fatigue correlation that they can predicablity run their units in a higher output state with tolerable risk levels.

I was reading Racefans.net transcript of Norris & Verstappens race communications and was wondering if GP told Max to turn down the engine on lap 47. From what I understand the regulations do allow for engines to be turned down, but not turned back up. But I don't know if the mentioned mode is just a ERS adjustment. Anyone who's into Red Bulls terminology?
https://www.racefans.net/2025/11/25/hes ... erstappen/

They are aimed at getting through season without substitute primarily.

But if the question was asked, if we restrict the use of a unit, then just how far could we push it with extreme case ? Which looks to be what happened in Merc 2021. Its likely a different answer to the norm, and if course speculation here with this end of season scenario now in PU deployment.

Routine is to analyse oil etc for wear component inclusion, matching that against typical profile of usage to monitor bearing material loss/accumulation into oil etc.

[Badger]

Speaking of, do we know what PU Verstappen used in Las Vegas? What was surprising to me is that they were actually quite slow on the straights in qualifying and the race. They were no quicker than Mclaren and well behind Mercedes. I thought this was strange because you would expect to see an advantage here with a fresh PU.

I mention this because in 2021, Mercedes actually ran the PU of Bottas too hard, bricked it, and had to replace it again...So it's possible that they damaged the Brazil PU (note this is heavy speculation)

Max was significantly down on SL speed in Vegas vs Merc and McLaren, in the range of 5 kph. I'd argue 3 main reasons. Firstly he was running slightly more drag, secondly there is no "spicy PU" (just a fresh PU running the normal settings, the power gain is quite marginal), and lastly the Merc PU excels in the cold temperatures of Vegas. They've had insane SL speed every year there, it just seems to bring out a few extra HP relative to the competition for them.

Tsunoda with the same rear wing minus a gurney flap, and likely a bit less front wing, was pretty much in line with the Merc.

https://i.postimg.cc/Mp0L2qvG/image.png

Tsunoda had the rocketship. I'm surprised that a gurney flap would account for such a large difference in straight line speed. It's almost unbelievable. In clean air he was 10km/h above Max on the back straight.

The speed trace between T3 and T5 is also strange. Verstappen goes to full throttle sooner, but Tsunoda's acceleration is incredible. Tsunoda's speed traces look the way Verstappen's did in Brazil. Leaping off the corners. Verstappen's straight line speed traces in Las Vegas look noticeably inferior.

The gap between them on the back straight closes a little bit towards the end of the race, but into T1 and into T5 Tsunoda has several km/h advantage from start to finish.

I think there are still some question marks about which PU was used and maybe even the effect of the floors on the straight line speed.

The lap you chose is probably not representative, Max may have been using a lower deployment to recover from the initial laps with Russell.

I'd look around lap 30-35, both are in clear air and from the trace you can see they are in the same ERS mode. The gap is consistently around 5 kph top speed, but with very similar acceleration up to 300 kph. That top speed difference can probably be accounted for with Max using a higher drag "semi-wet" set-up, whereas Yuki chose the optimum drag level for a dry race.

Yuki was pretty much keeping pace with the McLarens and Mercs on the straights, Max was a bit higher downforce so losing time. I see no evidence of engine differences between Yuki and Max.