2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[euv2]

The hards were terrible though, so much deg, they fell off a cliff at the end. The softs held on much better with pretty competitive lap times; think we'll see softs and mediums.

[Badger]

As per usual in Spain the soft looks like the only serviceable race tyre. Expect a 2 stop with S-M-S or similar.

Pace looked alright on the soft stint but nothing special.

[avantman]

The hards were terrible though, so much deg, they fell off a cliff at the end. The softs held on much better with pretty competitive lap times; think we'll see softs and mediums.

Hard was completely unusable last year in similar hot conditions, everybody knew that and didnt even try to use during the race. I mean everybody apart from Red bull and Hannah.
Is it the same hard as last year?

[euv2]

https://x.com/F1GuyDan/status/2065466941997756536?s=20

hmmm.

[Valeo]

Tyres are a step softer this year.
Mekies said they knew the car would struggle here, Top 3 like Monaco will be tough.
They know which issues to address, the Austria Update won't solve all problems but will be another good step.

[venkyhere]

Looking at sunday doesn't seem a good idea wasting a set of hards

Quite the opposite, is my read. In fact, I will be glad if they run FP3 with just a H tyre and run some Q sims with one of the used softs from today. S-S-M or S-M-S or S-M-M or S-M-M-S seems to be the optimal race strategy. Unlike the previous era with plenty of downforce, 2026 cars are starved of downforce, and with the long corners and high speeds => lots of sliding and surface temp shoot up if harder compounds are used. This is excluding the 'deg' from the lateral loads. That means H will not only be slower, it will also decay faster and not behave like a long-life tyre.

On another note, Mercedes was sandbagging hugely in FP2, couldn't get a 'read' on McLaren but I expect them to be the closest challenger for the front. I think Redbull's overweight will be 'telling' whether Q or R, on an otherwise 'ok looking' chassis for this track.

[Valeo]

[organic]

Tyres are a step softer this year.
Mekies said they knew the car would struggle here, Top 3 like Monaco will be tough.
They know which issues to address, the Austria Update won't solve all problems but will be another good step.

I think the Austria upgrade will actually solve everything

I take it back

[organic]

Apparently red bull brought a new chassis this weekend which is not the same as the old one

[euv2]

Apparently red bull brought a new chassis this weekend which is not the same as the old one

Yeah, apparently Ted said so. New chassis should mean they reduced some weight; I wonder if they had it on both cars. Hadjars race pace was horrendous compared to Max.

[search]

Quite the opposite, is my read. In fact, I will be glad if they run FP3 with just a H tyre and run some Q sims with one of the used softs from today. S-S-M or S-M-S or S-M-M or S-M-M-S seems to be the optimal race strategy. Unlike the previous era with plenty of downforce, 2026 cars are starved of downforce, and with the long corners and high speeds => lots of sliding and surface temp shoot up if harder compounds are used. This is excluding the 'deg' from the lateral loads. That means H will not only be slower, it will also decay faster and not behave like a long-life tyre.

those used softs are back at Pirelli already, and another two sets need to follow after FP3. So Verstappen will most likely have 1xH, 2xM, 4xS for qualifying and race.

Saving a fresh soft for Sunday will probably be difficult, unless he misses Q3.

[organic]

Max was very unhappy in the car. Write off weekend

[Valeo]

No tyres left in S3.
They have to sacrifice S1 like last year to be competitive I fear.

Doesn't look like they can fight the top 3 cars except for HAM maybe

[organic]

S3 is horrific

[euv2]

They were better in S3 yesterday, maybe its the tires they can't hold on to throughout the lap. But the car is definitely 4th fastest this weekend, it will be P7 and P8, unless they find something.