2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

If Yuki had repeated his performance from yesterday, Red Bull would have been able to push Mclaren into a corner on their pitstops. They couldn't afford to pit their cars out behind Yuki. A pity.

[f1isgood]

Think Red bull got a bit out developed on rear wings. Most top teams brough spoon shaped RWs and for this DF range they seem to do better but Red bull stayed with the old design.

Red Bull these regulations have been looking like a fool whenever it has come to wings.

Initially Red bull were the best, they had the highest efficiency and biggest DRS gain but most teams started copying their design and the gap became nonexistent. Only at the end of 24 season did MCL and FER experiment with the new spoon designs, and they seemed to have worked well for med and med-high configs.

Yeah but they never took the wings seriously. Since early 2022 I think their wing has remained the closest to the original design.

[f1isgood]

If Yuki had repeated his performance from yesterday, Red Bull would have been able to push Mclaren into a corner on their pitstops. They couldn't afford to pit their cars out behind Yuki. A pity.

Max's only chance still remains McLaren 's having a disaster. Absolutely nothing changes in that regard. Piastri has to get off well but Norris can't risk to lose out against Max as well.

I think turn 1 tomorrow will be the only interesting part of the race unless Pirellis go puncturing.

[euv2]

Red Bull these regulations have been looking like a fool whenever it has come to wings.

Initially Red bull were the best, they had the highest efficiency and biggest DRS gain but most teams started copying their design and the gap became nonexistent. Only at the end of 24 season did MCL and FER experiment with the new spoon designs, and they seemed to have worked well for med and med-high configs.

Yeah but they never took the wings seriously. Since early 2022 I think their wing has remained the closest to the original design.

Like Venkyhere said they've been obsessed with the floor. MCL started looking at the bigger picture and to try and bring balance alongside increased downforce, hence their focus on front wings and flex.

Dr. Obbs recently said on twitter that Red bull has chased downforce from the floor.
His words:

I’ve heard McLaren uses the floor contraction and profiling to create a well balanced performance that isn’t a peak load monster. Meanwhile some other teams, like RBR, have chosen to try and manage complex vortex systems from the fences and floor edge to bring big loads. The downside of this is that it can be a bit temperamental and hard to keep this vortex systems healthy.

In some way I admire Red bull's push for more downforce through increasing complexity but they've not gotten good enough stability in the final 2 years. Only after MCLs gains through front wings, did we start seeing some shift in focus.

[f1isgood]

Initially Red bull were the best, they had the highest efficiency and biggest DRS gain but most teams started copying their design and the gap became nonexistent. Only at the end of 24 season did MCL and FER experiment with the new spoon designs, and they seemed to have worked well for med and med-high configs.

Yeah but they never took the wings seriously. Since early 2022 I think their wing has remained the closest to the original design.

Like Venkyhere said they've been obsessed with the floor. MCL started looking at the bigger picture and to try and bring balance alongside increased downforce, hence their focus on front wings and flex.

Dr. Obbs recently said on twitter that Red bull has chased downforce from the floor.
His words:

I’ve heard McLaren uses the floor contraction and profiling to create a well balanced performance that isn’t a peak load monster. Meanwhile some other teams, like RBR, have chosen to try and manage complex vortex systems from the fences and floor edge to bring big loads. The downside of this is that it can be a bit temperamental and hard to keep this vortex systems healthy.

In some way I admire Red bull's push for more downforce through increasing complexity but they've not gotten good enough stability in the final 2 years. Only after MCLs gains through front wings, did we start seeing some shift in focus.

Floor downforce is clean downforce in that it is less draggy than wing downforce. Innovating the wings could have also given more downforce but for some reason Red Bull's philosophy never went there.

[MYsee]

If Yuki had repeated his performance from yesterday, Red Bull would have been able to push Mclaren into a corner on their pitstops. They couldn't afford to pit their cars out behind Yuki. A pity.

I wonder if McLaren will force the team game at this stage. We know that they will allow the front driver to make the call, and it's in Oscar's interest to try to screw over Lando as much as possible. He needs Lando to fall to 4th.

[f1isgood]

If Yuki had repeated his performance from yesterday, Red Bull would have been able to push Mclaren into a corner on their pitstops. They couldn't afford to pit their cars out behind Yuki. A pity.

I wonder if McLaren will force the team game at this stage. We know that they will allow the front driver to make the call, and it's in Oscar's interest to try to screw over Lando as much as possible. He needs Lando to fall to 4th.

If Oscar is worth his salt he would tell them to --- off and do what he wants.

[Juzh]

Looking at speed traces at gp-tempo Max loses almost enirety of the 2 tenths in a straight line in S3. High speed corner performance is actually ok, just a little bit behind, but because T14 is flat mclaren carries this straight line advantage for longer and gains around 2 tenths from T10 to T15.

[AR3-GP]

They are quicker on the straights after the setup changes. He was consistently 4-5kph quicker compared to yesterday.

[AR3-GP]

Marko

"We're happy with P3, but we're even happier with the difference. We were about half a second behind all weekend, and now it's only two tenths."

"And if you then take into account that we were able to handle the yellow and white tires, the harder compounds, much better, that gives us hope that we can run at the front in the race. Moreover, there are of course these limitations with the number of laps, which means that two stops are necessary. Anything can happen, both positive and negative."

[Sergej]

For Max, passing Lando at the start is a must, possibly trying to bother him as much as possible.

[venkyhere]

Guys, i don't know why we are "clinging on to hope", so much... even if Max was on pole for sprint and the race, and wins it here and in AbuDhabi, still it would have been easy for Norris to finish P2-P3. Just enjoy the last two races. There is no point in 'what if' wondering, whether it is the narrowly missed P2 s in Mexico/Brazil or whether it is the brain-fade 8-10 point loss in Barcelona. The WDC was lost in the first half of the season, where the RB21 was a wildly unpredictable car - sometimes fastest, sometimes midfielder, sometimes lead-pack etc. And WCC is out of the question anyway, being a one-car team. Yes, the last 2 months or so offered some 'hope against hope' , it was good while it lasted, but come on guys, we all knew it was a terribly long shot anyway. All the bad luck that McLaren could have had, they have had ; so can't complain about luck either.

The RB21 isn't a car that deserves to be in a championship fight, so it's been very exciting 'being on the periphery of the fight' post Monza. My biggest grouse with the Redbull team is that even in year four of the regulation, they still went for peak aero load and made a diva car, rather than continue in the vein of early 2022 when they didn't chase peak aero load but 'usable aero' rather. Combine a not-well-modelled simulator used for car setup, and we have had the operations team running helter skelter with car setup, nearly every single weekend. The only reason McL39 is a world-beater car this year, is because the ex-Redbull engineers who went there, made sure that they didn't chase peak-load and chased a wide-working-window.

We should congratulate McLaren engineering , and their drivers, because any of the three who win the WDC deserve the title, as they have all driven well (even if some were inconsistent). Just sit back and enjoy the last two races without any expectation.

[venkyhere]

They are quicker on the straights after the setup changes. He was consistently 4-5kph quicker compared to yesterday.

https://i.postimg.cc/hPM11rpy/image.png

Actually if you compare the fastest Q3 laps, Max is only a few thousanths behind Piastri until T7, post which is where he lost all of the quarter of a second, a large chunk of it in S3.

My guess is that it's the super-inflated tyres (min pres 29F, 26/27R) , at high aero load (super low riding and at high speed as well), once they are upto 'peak temperature' after T6, causing a 'red shift' or 'blue shift' in tyre harmonics w.r.t typical numbers when pressures are normal, whereby the new frequencies now find some sort of resonance with the damping frequencies of the suspension, leading to unexpected vibrations, and cause the bouncing/porpoising, making the car lose critical grip in phases of corner entry/exit.

Remember, one of Max's comments was 'I feel the engine is jumping from it's mounts and moving on it's own, out of phase with the car'. That is a big clue (it's wonderful that the team has a driver who is ultra-sensitive and feels everything happening in the car). I am almost convinced that this is exactly what happened with the Mclarens in Vegas (dangerously low static ride height, high speeds, and high tyre pressures) , just that because the track was bumpy, it led to premature skid wear.

[venkyhere]

A good metric of car development by the two rivals :

[euv2]

A good metric of car development by the two rivals :

https://i.ibb.co/Gv6N7dwW/Mc-L-vs-RB-ca ... o-2025.png

Are we surprised though? Start of the season people didn't even believe it was the RB21 they brought for testing, most thought it was the RB20. They changed such little bodywork, so the upper body aero efficiency was almost the same.