Infiniti Red Bull Racing 2014

[beelsebob]

Red Bull were 1 second/lap slower than Mercedes in Spain and the clear 2nd best car.
Come to Silverstone they are 1.6 seconds/lap slower than Mercedes and the 3rd best car (behind Williams).

Not something I'd expect from the best development team in F1, they are actually going backwards relative to the competition.

Vettels fastest lap was 3 tenths off Hamiltons which he set on the final lap, after spending 15+ laps battling with Alonso. Vettel would have at least been fighting with Botas had he not had a poor start compromising his strategy.

Hamilton had backed off to match Bottas' pace. The fact that Vettel was 3 tenths behind Hamilton at best indicates that he could have been 3 tenths off Bottas.

[Cam]

Agreed. Also, IMO, it continues to show the Red Bull certainly make a good 'clean air' car. Behind anyone else, they struggle. That being said, it was really only Vettel behind Alonso that exacerbated that theory and most of that was down to Alonso and his rage not to let Vettel past. I thought it was hilarious hearing them two. It was like 2 kids in the back seat:
Alonso "mum, Vettel's hitting me!"
Vettel "am not, you're hitting me!"
Alonso "Nah, you're hitting me, look you just did it!"
Vettel "Well, because you're hitting me, look you just did it!"

LOL. Kids. What can you do? Glad the stewards let them go. It was settled on track - as it should be.

Ricciardo showed some nice temperament today. Poor grid spot, the tyres hard tyres weren't working, the strategy wasn't working, so he planned with his team to run long on the softs tyres and one stop. But that only occurred during the race and only after Ricciardo felt the tyres could handle it. He's really maturing in his race craft and understudying of the whole situation (the car, the tyres, the race unfolding etc). Great stuff and another solid podium for him. Well deserved. Doubt too many could say Red Bull made a bad choice now.

[djos]

Ricciardo showed some nice temperament today. Poor grid spot, the tyres hard tyres weren't working, the strategy wasn't working, so he planned with his team to run long on the softs tyres and one stop. But that only occurred during the race and only after Ricciardo felt the tyres could handle it. He's really maturing in his race craft and understudying of the whole situation (the car, the tyres, the race unfolding etc). Great stuff and another solid podium for him. Well deserved. Doubt too many could say Red Bull made a bad choice now.

Riccardo seems to have stolen Vettel's master of Pirelli tire life status - a really superb drive by him!

Great to see Williams getting a podium with Bottas too, as a long suffering Williams fan I hope they can be a consistent top 3 team once again! [-o<

[Juzh]

Anyone who watched live timing knows rb had substantial pace advantage on williams when in clean air and was on average ~0,5s slower than merc on the same strategy. also, ric was consistently faster few 10ths than vet.

[Cold Fussion]

Red Bull were 1 second/lap slower than Mercedes in Spain and the clear 2nd best car.
Come to Silverstone they are 1.6 seconds/lap slower than Mercedes and the 3rd best car (behind Williams).

Not something I'd expect from the best development team in F1, they are actually going backwards relative to the competition.

Vettels fastest lap was 3 tenths off Hamiltons which he set on the final lap, after spending 15+ laps battling with Alonso. Vettel would have at least been fighting with Botas had he not had a poor start compromising his strategy.

Hamilton had backed off to match Bottas' pace. The fact that Vettel was 3 tenths behind Hamilton at best indicates that he could have been 3 tenths off Bottas.

Hamilton set his fastest lap time just after putting on the hard tyres, at which point he was chasing Rosberg. Vettel's pace when not stuck behind the Mclarens and Alonso was much better than that of Bottas. Setting a comparable time to Hamiltons fastest, while being on tyres that had been sitting 5 tenths off Alonso for 15 laps shows that Red Bull aren't going backwards, if they either had more straight line speed or a better start they would have been much closer to Mercedes then the results show.

[prince]

\quote="Kingshark"]Red Bull were 1 second/lap slower than Mercedes in Spain and the clear 2nd best car.
Come to Silverstone they are 1.6 seconds/lap slower than Mercedes and the 3rd best car (behind Williams).

Not something I'd expect from the best development team in F1, they are actually going backwards relative to the competition. /quote

Vettels fastest lap was 3 tenths off Hamiltons which he set on the final lap, after spending 15+ laps battling with Alonso. Vettel would have at least been fighting with Botas had he not had a poor start compromising his strategy.

Hamilton had backed off to match Bottas' pace. The fact that Vettel was 3 tenths behind Hamilton at best indicates that he could have been 3 tenths off Bottas.

Hamilton set his fastest lap time just after putting on the hard tyres, at which point he was chasing Rosberg. Vettel's pace when not stuck behind the Mclarens and Alonso was much better than that of Bottas. Setting a comparable time to Hamiltons fastest, while being on tyres that had been sitting 5 tenths off Alonso for 15 laps shows that Red Bull aren't going backwards, if they either had more straight line speed or a better start they would have been much closer to Mercedes then the results show.

FIA Lap Chart from Race.
http://184.106.145.74/f1-championship/f ... is_V01.pdf
On 5th Lap of the Race, following were the laptimes from the top drivers. I have projected 5th lap here, considering it takes couple of laps to get into right temperature window to perform optimally.

Vettel - 1:41.845
Dan R - 1:42.091
Nico - 1:38.011
Lewis - 1:39.345
Alonso - 1:40.988
Bottas - 1:41.475
Jenson - 1:41.226

It was clear that Mercs were more than 2.5 seconds per lap faster than the second best driver (Alonso with fresh Mediums that he changed when the race was red flagged) when ACTUALLY RACING.

[Cold Fussion]

And on lap 21, Hamilton was 2 tenths slower than Vettel, and Vettel 2 tenths slower than Rosberg. What point are you making?

[SectorOne]

And on lap 21, Hamilton was 2 tenths slower than Vettel, and Vettel 2 tenths slower than Rosberg. What point are you making?

No he wasn´t.
On lap 21 Vettel was 8 tenths slower then Hamilton. And 1,2 seconds slower then Rosberg.

Vettel was on mid-life Mediums, Hamilton end-life and Rosberg brand new ones.

http://macofan.com/en/index.php?page=ch ... 20Hamilton

[rayden]

If renault can sort themselves out, and RB get within touching distance of the mercs (Unlikely I know), then I think dan could do them on strategy, he gets some ridiculous life out of these pirellis, hes even better than perez in this regard.

[prince]

And on lap 21, Hamilton was 2 tenths slower than Vettel, and Vettel 2 tenths slower than Rosberg. What point are you making?

I thought it is basic common sense to understand that, given a situation where almost all parameters match, relative pace can be understood to best possible extent. At the 5th lap, everyone that I mentioned had the same tyre life (except alonso) as they all started with the same tyres that they qualified on. That was the time to see who has got the pace. And once the race moves on, the individual driver styles, the characterstics of the car and the strategy they are on, all play a role in varying pace.

[Kingshark]

After Silverstone, does anyone seriously still believe that Red Bull is the fastest car through the corners?

Red Bull's engine disadvantage this year is no greater than Renault's power deficiency in 2003, when they were 60 to 70 bhp weaker than the leading engines (BMW, Ferrari); yet performance wise Renault were much closer to the top team (Ferrari) in Silverstone and Barcelona '03 than Red Bull have been on the same circuits.

Clearly the PU is not the only problem for Red Bull. You don't lose 2.5 seconds on horsepower alone around a circuit like Silverstone. Red Bull need more downforce on their car through high speed corners, they are trailing Mercedes in that respect too.

[Juzh]

After Silverstone, does anyone seriously still believe that Red Bull is the fastest car through the corners?

Red Bull's engine disadvantage this year is no greater than Renault's power deficiency in 2003, when they were 60 to 70 bhp weaker than the leading engines (BMW, Ferrari); yet performance wise Renault were much closer to the top team (Ferrari) in Silverstone and Barcelona '03 than Red Bull have been on the same circuits.

Clearly the PU is not the only problem for Red Bull. You don't lose 2.5 seconds on horsepower alone around a circuit like Silverstone. Red Bull need more downforce on their car through high speed corners, they are trailing Mercedes in that respect too.

Proof? Or at least something to support your statement. Solid comparisons would be nice. Numbers, onboards and so on.

[senja]

And on lap 21, Hamilton was 2 tenths slower than Vettel, and Vettel 2 tenths slower than Rosberg. What point are you making?

I thought it is basic common sense to understand that, given a situation where almost all parameters match, relative pace can be understood to best possible extent. At the 5th lap, everyone that I mentioned had the same tyre life (except alonso) as they all started with the same tyres that they qualified on. That was the time to see who has got the pace. And once the race moves on, the individual driver styles, the characterstics of the car and the strategy they are on, all play a role in varying pace.

After Red Flag Red Bull changed to hard compound. And all drivers, except Rosberg, in 5th lap were driving behind other cars...

[Kingshark]

Proof? Or at least something to support your statement. Solid comparisons would be nice. Numbers, onboards and so on.

You cannot lose over 1.5 second/lap around Silverstone on horsepower alone, you just can't.

James Allen stated, during Alonso's qualifying lap in Malaysia 2004, that Renault were still 60 to 70 horsepower down on the leading engines (Ferrari, BMW); yet in 2003 Renault were regularly on the same pace as the top 3 teams. At best, the R23 was only a few tenths/lap slower than the F2003GA and FW25 despite such power disadvantage.

If Renault could be so close to the front runners with a clearly inferior engine, then what is Red Bull's excuse now? They were even half a second/lap slower than Mercedes around Monaco (of all the places). They were over 1.0 seconds/lap slower than Mercedes in Barcelona, and 2.0 seconds/lap slower in Silverstone.

Let's talk about last race in Silverstone, a circuit with many fast corners which rewards downforce (like Suzuka). Vettel was out-qualified by 1.620 seconds by Rosberg when both did their lap in the same conditions. Perhaps because Rosberg crossed the line about 10 seconds later, he maybe gained a tenth at most.

In the race Mercedes were pulling away from the rest of the field at a rate of 2.0 - 2.5 seconds/lap in the early phases last race.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/07/06/2 ... ap-charts/

Then Vettel, even on fresh medium tyres, was barely any faster (if not slower) than both Hamilton and Rosberg who were on 10 lap old medium tyres.

Of course, don't take my word for it, just watch Monaco again. Mercedes dominated qualifying with a front row lockout, and achieved a comfortable 1-2 finish in the race. The fact that Red Bull couldn't even put up half a fight against Mercedes around Monte Carlo shows that Renault's lack of horsepower is not the only problem with their car.

The RB10 chassis is probably not on the same level as the WO5 (which is quickly becoming one of the greatest cars ever made).

[Juzh]

Red bulls were fastest in final sector in monaco which is nothing but corner after corner and a run to the finish. Also RB were always close in the rain where power is not so important (australia, malaysia). Merc was not 2s a lap faster than RB in silverstone, nor were they 1s ahead in spain. Both RB were in traffic on both occasion and were running a compromised strategy. 10 laps old tires were not really that bad in silverstone either. Ric had them on for 37 laps, while bottas ran them on good pace for 18 without problems. Also Vettel did his fastest lap on the last lap on 19 laps old tires after a 12 laps long battle with alonso AND compromised brakes on top of that. Bottom line, tires were not an issue during this race. Vettel's quali lap was sub-par and ric was sometimes up to 1s quicker than him in Q3 and Q2 when they were putting down lap after lap.
In spain Vettel actually gained 7-8s on both merc drivers in his final stint and only fell back after he caught rai and bot. Even so, there's 66 laps in barcelona and ric was "only" 49s off the lead (after being stuck behind bottas for 14 laps and then running less than optimal strategy), which in itself doesn't translate to 1s/lap.
Merc engine alone is woeth a lot of lap time. 80bhp was said to be worth more than 2s round monza, so 1s round barcelona or silverstone is not something hard to believe.