2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[f1isgood]

Wache and Verstappen always said this thing had "potential". Max is not going to carry someone else's bs for them. If Max says it has potential, then its because they know something obvious is wrong. In this case it is the weight of the car.

Furthermore, if they are talking about potential this year, then it means they intend to deal with a lot of it this year. They probably bring a lightweight chassis in the 2nd half.

Weird that no one from the team has said the car is overweight, when McLaren and Williams have done so.
Would have reduced the scrutiny. Yes, a new lightweight chassis will be a must.

Wache said this already in pre season testing. He specifically said the situation isn't as bad as 2022 though. So 30kg would be a disaster and 10kg is more along the lines of what I think is going on.

[f1isgood]

They're not shedding 30kgs by end of the year. This is peak incompetence. Williams level incompetence.

Also this doesn't explain why the car is generally --- at everything lol. The 2022 car had very clear strengths even while being so heavy. There's nothing on this car.

That is true, RB18 despite the overweight showed clear qualities, which this car does not seem to have. However, we have been told that this year overweight matters much more, so maybe under that there is something good in the RB22. The thing is it will take muuuuuch time to get it.

Yes. I think it's normal to expect better given they knew these issues very well from last regulation cycle. It's ultimately throwing points and podiums away.

[Xyz22]

It's not 30kg. You need to factor in for the ballast required to match the minimum weight for the driver.
The RB22 is 19kg overweighted compared to the minimum weight.

[AR3-GP]

10kg or 20kg or 30kg or whatever doesn't matter. The fact that they're starting heavy is also simply incompetence.

It's their philosophy. Whether that is seen as incompetence or not depends on perspective.

But our philosophy every time is to try and make a car quicker, not on the weight limit or whatever."

https://racingnews365.com/red-bull-conf ... 026-f1-car

[euv2]

Wache and Verstappen always said this thing had "potential". Max is not going to carry someone else's bs for them. If Max says it has potential, then its because they know something obvious is wrong. In this case it is the weight of the car.

Furthermore, if they are talking about potential this year, then it means they intend to deal with a lot of it this year. They probably bring a lightweight chassis in the 2nd half.

Weird that no one from the team has said the car is overweight, when McLaren and Williams have done so.
Would have reduced the scrutiny. Yes, a new lightweight chassis will be a must.

Wache said this already in pre season testing. He specifically said the situation isn't as bad as 2022 though. So 30kg would be a disaster and 10kg is more along the lines of what I think is going on.

Yeah, just saw the quotes. But he says overweight just like other teams but this would make them an outlier along with Williams.

[AlexP]

It's not 30kg. You need to factor in for the ballast required to match the minimum weight for the driver.
The RB22 is 19kg overweighted compared to the minimum weight.

Minimum weight in qualy is 772.4 this year, for the race 770.4kg.

[pantherxxx]

“It's not complicated to bring it [the weight] down,” said Vowles on the Sunday of the Australian weekend. “Already what I have in my inbox today is all of the engineering steps to not just bring it down, but actually be underweight by a good amount. That exists to us."

If even Vowles say that Williams can easily shred weight, than Red Bull can do the same with twice as many engineers working there. If they reduce all that weight, the car will be magnitudes of more competitive. Yes in China the car sucked, because of only one free practice, and wrong setup, but in Australia, they were not that far off the pace.

[organic]

It's not 30kg. You need to factor in for the ballast required to match the minimum weight for the driver.
The RB22 is 19kg overweighted compared to the minimum weight.

Minimum weight in qualy is 772.4 this year, for the race 770.4kg.

They're saying that once max isn't in the car (the condition that the weighing was made with) you still have to account for the driver ballast (the weight that max is under the 82kg driver minimum weight) which isn't taken out of the car as it's under the driver seat. Max is just over 70kg, so the driver ballast is ~10kg. Meaning that red bull is probably around 20kg overweight

Much more believable.

[AR3-GP]

It's not 30kg. You need to factor in for the ballast required to match the minimum weight for the driver.
The RB22 is 19kg overweighted compared to the minimum weight.

Minimum weight in qualy is 772.4 this year, for the race 770.4kg.

I don't think that's correct. The regulations state the following:



724 + nominal tire mass in the race
726 + nominal tire mass in qualifying.

We don't know what the nominal tire mass is and there is no reason for it to be published anywhere.

[AlexP]

It's not 30kg. You need to factor in for the ballast required to match the minimum weight for the driver.
The RB22 is 19kg overweighted compared to the minimum weight.

Minimum weight in qualy is 772.4 this year, for the race 770.4kg.

They're saying that once max isn't in the car (the condition that the weighing was made with) you still have to account for the driver ballast (the weight that max is under the 82kg driver minimum weight) which isn't taken out of the car as it's under the driver seat. Max is just over 70kg, so the driver ballast is ~10kg. Meaning that red bull is probably around 20kg overweight

Much more believable.

Yes, but in the photo it’s Hadjar’s car at the weighbridge or am I missing something?

[organic]

Minimum weight in qualy is 772.4 this year, for the race 770.4kg.

They're saying that once max isn't in the car (the condition that the weighing was made with) you still have to account for the driver ballast (the weight that max is under the 82kg driver minimum weight) which isn't taken out of the car as it's under the driver seat. Max is just over 70kg, so the driver ballast is ~10kg. Meaning that red bull is probably around 20kg overweight

Much more believable.

Yes, but in the photo it’s Hadjar’s car at the weighbridge or am I missing something?

Ok sure hadjar. I don't know hadjar's weight but afaik max is one of the heavier drivers on the grid. Hadjar is pretty short so I'd say 65kg is safe. So 17kg driver ballast can explain a big portion of the weight excess?

[f1isgood]

10kg or 20kg or 30kg or whatever doesn't matter. The fact that they're starting heavy is also simply incompetence.

It's their philosophy. Whether that is seen as incompetence or not depends on perspective.

But our philosophy every time is to try and make a car quicker, not on the weight limit or whatever."

https://racingnews365.com/red-bull-conf ... 026-f1-car

More than philosophy that is their job. Being on the weight limit, redistributing the weight through ballast for driver preference is simply "easy lap time".

I am also not discounting the fact that Verstappen himself might be adapting to driving these cars which might be worth a few tenths.

The car doesn't have anything super strong unlike the RB18. There's really nothing that I have seen so far that screams potential. If the car had performance we would see it. The data never lies. You cannot finish behind Gasly and Bearman in a new regulation on merit even as a second driver. It's just not it. You cannot spin it any other way.

[pantherxxx]

Hadjar : 65 kg
Verstappen: 72 kg

[AR3-GP]

It's not just about reaching the weight limit, you also need to go below so that you can play with ballast to adjust the balance:

Stella was keen to outline why he wants McLaren to get under the limit as soon as possible.

"Certainly, working on reducing the weight of the car is always a development item, because even if you are at the weight limit, you want to be actually under the weight limit, because then you can play with ballast," he explained to media, including RacingNews365, during testing in Bahrain.

https://racingnews365.com/mclaren-hopin ... ttleground

So Red Bull's "project" is not just 15-20kg, it's closer to 30kg to get the car how it should be in terms of the min weight, and the room they need to fine tune the balance of the car.

[organic]

Hadjar : 65 kg
Verstappen: 72 kg

So 15kg overweight at the most. Seems about right