2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Badger]

everyone will bring big updates, if not in Bahrain for session 2, it will happen in Australia. Ferrari for example will bring important updates (a new extreme cover engine is sure)

Yes, and Ferrari already shot their first salvo this week when they brought several upgrades and clearly found pace. Every test is just a snapshot of each car so you need to be mindful of where that car is in its development, what upgrades have been brought, and what can be expected in the future.

RB has likely not invested as much time into refining its concept as some of the other teams that turned their focus to 2026 earlier, so their first few upgrade packages should be revealing as to what kind of potential they have.

Ferrari also stepped back from the 'complaining group' and are now pallies with Mercedes, regarding the "engine trick complaint" so 3/5 is a no-go w.r.t FIA action. I am reminded of the "5 families of NewYork" in the Godfather novel.

Regarding updates, widespread notion was that the RB22 front wing was 'basic' , however the 'update' that Ferrari brought to Bahrain had their 'new' front wing very similar to the RB22 one. Different teams were in different states of 'readiness' even in Barcelona, so we can't predict 'how drastic' updates will look and whether it will even be 'eyeball-able' updates or whether it will be invisible, like a suspension update or a S/W algorithm change. I think we shouldn't fall into the trap of "oh team X dont have any update, while team Y have, so team Y are developing better"

I think you are misinterpreting Ferrari's position. They will still be pursuing a change to the test in the upcoming commission meeting, but they will not pursue the nuclear option of protesting the results if the FIA/FOM rules against changing the test. Likewise Toto has said he will not challenge the FIA if they decide to change the test. AFAIK it was Audi and Honda who were threatening to protest anyways.

[Sergej]

Ferrari also stepped back from the 'complaining group' and are now pallies with Mercedes, regarding the "engine trick complaint" so 3/5 is a no-go w.r.t FIA action. I am reminded of the "5 families of NewYork" in the Godfather novel.

misinformation from the Merc thread. Ferrari said they won’t make a formal protest in Australia. That does not equal NOT voting against it at the WMSC next week. On that it has been clear for a long time. All teams are in alignment except Mercedes.

They don't vote at the WMSC, do they ? they vote in the F1 Commission (or, if I understood correctly, in a "PU manufacturers" commission, where 4/5 majority plus FIA and FOM is required), and then the vote goes to the WMSC for approval (which is obvious). Anyway also this vote is not official, just rumored.

[AR3-GP]

Ferrari also stepped back from the 'complaining group' and are now pallies with Mercedes, regarding the "engine trick complaint" so 3/5 is a no-go w.r.t FIA action. I am reminded of the "5 families of NewYork" in the Godfather novel.

misinformation from the Merc thread. Ferrari said they won’t make a formal protest in Australia. That does not equal NOT voting against it at the WMSC next week. On that it has been clear for a long time. All teams are in alignment except Mercedes.

They don't vote at the WMSC, do they ? they vote in the F1 Commission (or, if I understood correctly, in a "PU manufacturers" commission, where 4/5 majority plus FIA and FOM is required), and then the vote goes to the WMSC for approval (which is obvious). Anyway also this vote is not official, just rumored.

I'm not sure of the finer details (what you said sounds more correct), but just wanted to point out that Ferrari's comments about no protest in Melbourne are unrelated to the decision-making process for a change to the compression ratio test.

[venkyhere]

My bad, sorry guys. Didn't dive deep enough before typing what I did.

[Jdn1327]

Can someone explain how Redbull can have such mega energy deployment compared to other teams? Is it better energy recovery as well?

[Henk_v]

My guess is that not much is learned from deploying on straights and not deploying all you've got in the straight might be the easiest way to sandbag.

Usually, if a car performs well in testing regarding laptime, that team is negotiating a big sponsorship deal. My wild guess would be an Oracle renewal, as I can imagine sponsors have not been keen to have their deals last much longer than the Honda PU supply.

[FittingMechanics]

Can someone explain how Redbull can have such mega energy deployment compared to other teams? Is it better energy recovery as well?

I think that Toto (and the rest) are just trying to make their engine look weaker, but what he was saying is that Red Bull has great energy recovery because Max looked to be able to deploy a lot of energy every lap, which obviously leads to great energy deployment. People usually just talk about the result because it is visible (deployment) but to get it you need recovery that doesn't cost a lot of laptime.

[venkyhere]

Can someone explain how Redbull can have such mega energy deployment compared to other teams? Is it better energy recovery as well?

Don't believe that story started by Toto and then parroted by other mercedes engined drivers. Redbull were using up a lot of battery in the straights, and very little in other parts of the track (where they were harvesting aggressively) leading to similar lap times as all the other teams. Because general public hasn't get caught on with the 8.5MJ max and the 4MJ SoC 'gap' numbers, there is a narrative campaign to portray Redbull as the 'benchmark'. Redbull 'figured it out' (how to be quick on the straights) the earliest and did their battery management on Day1 of Baharain. By Day3, almost everyone (except AMR) was doing the same. It's a pure diversion tactic by politician Wolff.

[organic]

Waché talked on canal+ about how they're disappointed with the chassis performance.

[Paa]

Waché talked on canal+ about how they're disappointed with the chassis performance.

What does that mean? Aero? Suspension? Cooling? Balance? Did he specify?

It is interesting that everybody expected great aero being held back by a weak engine from Red Bull.
Would be fun plot twist to have an awesome engine being held back by semi-decent chassis.

[Rikhart]

Waché talked on canal+ about how they're disappointed with the chassis performance.

Huh, if true this is not very encouraging.

[AR3-GP]

Waché talked on canal+ about how they're disappointed with the chassis performance.

Not surprising. Verstappen never said anything positive about the chassis. He only ever praised how well the PU works every time that he was asked about the car.

[AR3-GP]

Would be fun plot twist to have an awesome engine being held back by semi-decent chassis.

That was the last 2 years.

[pantherxxx]

Pierre Waché speaks about the good and bad surprises of these tests in an interview with Canal+:

'The good surprise is the exceptional work of the engine group.. it's exceptional what they've given us.

In terms of the bad surprises, perhaps our overall performance, it's still hard to say but we maybe thought we'd be a bit better than that on the chassis side, it's something we'll see more clearly in Melbourne but it's certain that we thought we'd be a little bit better than that

Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes will be there, in what order it's hard to say.

It seems like we're a bit behind those three. It's the beginning, the goal is to show as last season... at the end of the season we see who wins or not.'

[Valeo]

Waché even managed to talk down the RB19 back then
I wouldn't take that seriously.
From what could be heard/seen by track observers, the car was right up there with the other top cars.