2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Yas Marina, Dec 05 - 07

[Quantum]

That is just false claims.
Perez fell apart in 2023 - Without any external pressure, without any preference on giving Verstappen updates and not to him.
Perez fell apart in 2024 - Without any substantial change in the car. All by himself.
Lawson did not immediately learn how to drive again when back at RB. In contrast, it took him till Spain to show a half decent result.

Regarding 2023 and 2024, he finished 2nd in 2023 and was in 2nd place in the WDC standings after 6 races(Miami...when Mclaren got good) in 2024. These are facts and not "false claims".

The assertion that Perez "fell apart in 2023" is baseless.
The fact is: He finished 3rd in 2022 and 2nd in 2023 and was easily in 2nd place up to when McLaren beat Red Bull in Miami. Again, a fact that is readily available for all to verfiy.

The very day McLaren showed it could beat Red Bull, Perez did not see the top 5 in that Red Bull car ever again.
You don't think they're linked?

[basti313]

That is just false claims.
Perez fell apart in 2023 - Without any external pressure, without any preference on giving Verstappen updates and not to him.
Perez fell apart in 2024 - Without any substantial change in the car. All by himself.
Lawson did not immediately learn how to drive again when back at RB. In contrast, it took him till Spain to show a half decent result.

Regarding 2023 and 2024, he finished 2nd in 2023 and was in 2nd place in the WDC standings after 6 races(Miami...when Mclaren got good) in 2024. These are facts and not "false claims".

These are no facts, this is just reading stats how you like it to create false claims. Just because there was no contender in 2023...
Perez was nowhere near Verstappen ever in this timeframe. Remember Miami 23? Just rewatch it if you think otherwise.
Perez also did not make Q3 in Spain, Austria, Britain....and so on... in this rocketship of a car all by himself. Sometimes he had the same Q1 time and just fumbled all by himself in Q2. How do you want to make this a RedBull error?
Same goes 24. He was miles away in every Q. In Australia he startet P5 and was just slow all race, without the crash of Rus P6 at the end.
When he started to lose out in China, he had his usual 20sec gap to Ver.

The very day McLaren showed it could beat Red Bull, Perez did not see the top 5 in that Red Bull car ever again.
You don't think they're linked?

No. That is just a stupid claim, that RedBull made his car slower because McLaren was there.
And it is simply not true, in Monaco he started from the back by having the same 0.3s gap in Q that he always had to Verstappen. In Spain he failed by the same 0.6s gap as the year before.
That was all his own pace and errors.

[Quantum]

These are no facts, this is just reading stats how you like it to create false claims.

These are facts Basti, as much as they appear distasteful to you there's nothing I can do about that.

No. That is just a stupid claim, that RedBull made his car slower because McLaren was there.

I made no such claim of Red Bull intentionally making Perez car slower. Again, that's not an issue of my point, rather it is a function of failing to grasp that Red Bull focussing on Max after Miami is far more plausible than Perez suddenly falling off a cliff at exactly after that moment and drivers succeeding him having the same issue.

Picking and 2 or 3results to validate a seasonal opinion is not how you validate a season.
The standings don't lie and don't rely on cherry picked bias. I'm sorry to have to point this out.

The final point I will make on this, it there are 3 options.
1. Perez/Tsunoda/Lawson all forget to drive a car with the offset starting from Miami.
2. Max found God Mode after Miami.
3. Red Bull made Max their focal point at the exact moment it became clear McLaren could give them a run for their money(Miami)

Now in all of this, it must also be made clear this is no slight on Max or Red Bull. I will add that Max is clearly and obviously better than all those drivers. So as to clear up any misguided doubts.

But from a perspective of eliminating the the point with the least assumptions, well .....

<non relevant personal tease removed>

[rbirules]

I made no such claim of Red Bull intentionally making Perez car slower. Again, that's not an issue of my point, rather it is a function of failing to grasp that Red Bull focusing on Max after Miami is far more plausible than Perez suddenly falling off a cliff at exactly after that moment and drivers succeeding him having the same issue.

Isn't it possible that the RB20, not just Checo, fell off a cliff, relative to the field, in mid-2024? And that trend continued into 2025, until McLaren stopped upgrading their car and Red Bull brought the Monza upgraded floor (and upgraded front wings in Singapore, IIRC)? It was an incredibly high cliff to fall from. If this hypothesis is correct, then we'd also see reduced results from Max.

I don't think I need to recap Max's performance in 2023 and pre-Miami 2024 (he won or came close to winning everything, other than Singapore). Miami upgrades (Oscar got half in Miami and the other half in Imola) suddenly put McLaren right on par with the RB20 (Max wins from pole in Imola where it's hard to pass, then beats Lando in Canada and Spain due to better strategy and better start). From mid-2024 (let's say Austria) to Monza 2025 the RB20/21 seemed firmly in the mix with Ferrari and Mercedes for second best car, and it varied track to track. Max would still get the odd win here and there (Brazil '24, Qatar '24, Japan '25, Imola '25), but would also often be 5th, 6th, 7th at certain tracks, and fighting for the last podium spots the rest of the time. His teammates during that time consistently struggled to get the car into the points, and often missed Q3, if not Q2. This is definitely a "yellow patch" for Max during the GE era.

Then in Monza upgrades are brought, while McLaren stands still, and what happens? Max goes right back to winning the vast majority of races (winning 6 of 9 GPs, beating both McLarens in 7 of 9 GPs, finishing on the podium in all 9 GPs, and probably had the drive of the year finishing on the podium from the pit lane in Brazil). Yuki also had a 6th, and 7th place finish during this time, his best results of the year (never finished higher than 9th prior to this). Checo had one 6th place (or higher) finish after Miami in 2024.

Others, more knowledgeable than me, can speak to this better, but wasn't the rumor, or report, that RB started chasing peak DF instead of continuing to pursue their initial path of wide working windows? I think once other teams caught up in 2024 (even late 2023) RB had to push their car to the limits and they found it very difficult to get the car in a good working window while attempting to do that. Clearly Max adapted (much) better to these setups than his three teammates.

[Quantum]

I made no such claim of Red Bull intentionally making Perez car slower. Again, that's not an issue of my point, rather it is a function of failing to grasp that Red Bull focusing on Max after Miami is far more plausible than Perez suddenly falling off a cliff at exactly after that moment and drivers succeeding him having the same issue.

Isn't it possible that the RB20, not just Checo, fell off a cliff, relative to the field, in mid-2024? And that trend continued into 2024, until McLaren stopped upgrading their car and Red Bull brought the Monza upgraded floor (and upgraded front wings in Singapore, IIRC)? It was an incredibly high cliff to fall from. If this hypothesis is correct, then we'd also see reduced results from Max.

I don't think I need to recap Max's performance in 2023 and pre-Miami 2024 (he won or came close to winning everything, other than Singapore). Miami upgrades (Oscar got half in Miami and the other half in Imola) suddenly put McLaren right on par with the RB20 (Max wins from pole in Imola where it's hard to pass, then beats Lando in Canada and Spain due to better strategy and better start). From mid-2024 (let's say Austria) to Monza 2025 the RB20/21 seemed firmly in the mix with Ferrari and Mercedes for second best car, and it varied track to track. Max would still get the odd win here and there (Brazil '24, Qatar '24, Japan '25, Imola '25), but would also often be 5th, 6th, 7th at certain tracks, and fighting for the last podium spots the rest of the time. His teammates during that time consistently struggled to get the car into the points, and often missed Q3, if not Q2. This is definitely a "yellow patch" for Max during the GE era.

Then in Monza upgrades are brought, while McLaren stands still, and what happens? Max goes right back to winning the vast majority of races (winning 6 of 9 GPs, beating both McLarens in 7 of 9 GPs, finishing on the podium in all 9 GPs, and probably had the drive of the year finishing on the podium from the pit lane in Brazil). Yuki also had a 6th, and 7th place finish during this time, his best results of the year (never finished higher than 9th prior to this). Checo had one 6th place (or higher) finish after Miami in 2024.

Others, more knowledgeable than me, can speak to this better, but wasn't the rumor, or report, that RB started chasing peak DF instead of continuing to pursue their initial path of wide working windows? I think once other teams caught up in 2024 (even late 2023) RB had to push their car to the limits and they found it very difficult to get the car in a good working window while attempting to do that. Clearly Max adapted (much) better to these setups than his three teammates.

Unfortunately unable to respond as have been issued a warning for having to repeat a fact. Hollus didnt like it much.