2019 Aston Martin Red Bull Racing - Honda F1 Team

[McMika98]

People need to just chill and let the team do its thing. They had trouble switching the rear tyres amd that the bottom line. Aero wise they are still up there, the setup was in the wrong direction. Teams like Haas and Mclaren seem to cope well with the blistery conditions and were early on throttle after a hairpin which explains the early accleration gain. Expect them to be well clear of midfield in China.

[etusch]

The problem is that it will have to be a massive move in performance... Mercedes and Ferrari won’t stay static waiting for RBH and if they come into Barcelona with what they should have had for Melbourne, the top 2 will still have 5 weeks of development on them.

Mercedes, yes they will be ahead but Ferrari is not good inseason development.

[HPD]

Some say that Ferrari front wing philosophy is not so good to find performance during the season.
But Ferrari already has a (great) advantage on the engine side.
Definitely RB will not fight for the championship (my opinion). But I hope they fight for second place. It would not be a bad result.

[HPD]

Rob Marshall, Red Bull's chief engineering officer, says there is already scope for more performance to be found by better packaging of the Honda engine.

"We can see areas around the power unit to focus on packaging-wise," he said, in a Q&A issued by Red Bull partner ExxonMobil on Monday.

"They aren't necessarily big bits but there are probably four or five areas where we think, if we could change that, that would be better.

"You add five of those five things up or even three of those five things and you make a tangible gain.

"It's almost like free gains, if you know what I mean, as in no real performance cost on Honda's side. It's just making different bits and moving a few things around.

"They are very open to our suggestions and equally, we understand when they say that's a bit tricky or we don't want to do that because there's a reliability risk associated with that."

"The honeymoon period is still fully in swing, but I think it's fair to say. Honda are really professional, they are really prepared and they are pushing really hard," he explained.

"They understand what we need and we understand what we need so it's going well."

"With Honda, it's quite different. We sit down together and decide what is best.

"When we have our meetings, we don't talk about what makes the power unit fastest or the car fastest, we talk about what development collects the most championship points, so you take the risk of reliability into it as well.

"That's how we decide whether to do something or not. So it's quite a different approach."

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14264 ... with-honda

[HPD]

"Honda are really a breath of fresh air," Newey told Sky F1's Natalie Pinkham on her In The Pink Podcast. "They are great people to work with, very straight forward, very well organised.

"It's actually motivated the whole team having this new relationship with them. They always deliver what they say. No complaints at all there.

"They're not quite at Mercedes or Ferrari level yet, but I have every confidence that they will get there quite quickly. They just instil that confidence."

But Newey added: "On the chassis side, I'll be brutally honest we haven't got the car as good as we'd like it to be at the moment. We just need to get on and do our bit.

"I think that's the nice relationship that we have with Honda that we trust each other to just get on and do our bits and not start flinging mud at each other.

"Culturally, absolutely they are very different but I think as long as you respect that and understand it then it's absolutely fine."

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... erformance

[dtro]

I still don't understand the negativity behind RB's performance this year. I'm fairly certain they have more points at this point than they did last year at this point in the season. It's been two races, RB has had difficult starts to seasons more often than not if I recall correctly. Last year they had a double DNF in Bahrain and like 20 points from Australia. The car can finish races, at least so it appears now, the car has room for improvement which is also a good thing. If they were p*ssing themselves racking their brains wondering how to add performance I'd be far more worried.

[yener]

It's kinda strange to say the engine needs proper packaging, while at the pre season test in Barcelona, they couldnt stop showing off "how tight the engine" was packed. Offcourse after that, they realised that they had some problems and it was a bit too tight.
And now they are talking about 5 area's which could be better?
Does it really takes 6 weeks to realise the package could be improved without losing result on the PU side?

[ispano6]

It's kinda strange to say the engine needs proper packaging, while at the pre season test in Barcelona, they couldnt stop showing off "how tight the engine" was packed. Offcourse after that, they realised that they had some problems and it was a bit too tight.
And now they are talking about 5 area's which could be better?
Does it really takes 6 weeks to realise the package could be improved without losing result on the PU side?

Yes, apparently it does. Normally you would have about 3 grand prix distances worth of running in the last two days of winter testing they did not do analyzing aero. I believe what Red Bull says rather than uninformed hotheads who say Gaslys crash didn't hinder development.

Remember, this is not PU packaging, this is packaging the PU in the chassis and bodywork. The bodywork packaging in some places can be more aggressive. Even Adrian is saying the chassis is not right and that Honda is delivering, Max is saying the full potential isn't even being extracted yet. And yet we still have Debbie Downers poking jabs at Honda. Bitter, aren't we?

[rogazilla]

It's kinda strange to say the engine needs proper packaging, while at the pre season test in Barcelona, they couldnt stop showing off "how tight the engine" was packed. Offcourse after that, they realised that they had some problems and it was a bit too tight.
And now they are talking about 5 area's which could be better?
Does it really takes 6 weeks to realise the package could be improved without losing result on the PU side?

If a team stop finding places to improve then I'd be really worried. No matter how good something is done, they should always try to do it better.

[diffuser]

Some say that Ferrari front wing philosophy is not so good to find performance during the season.
But Ferrari already has a (great) advantage on the engine side.
Definitely RB will not fight for the championship (my opinion). But I hope they fight for second place. It would not be a bad result.

Not sure if Ferrari has an edge just in the PU or where. The whole package, when reliable, is alot faster than anyone(based on Bahrain Quali results). For that reason I don't think there is much chance of RBR fighting for 2nd. We learn more at each race so my opinion might change, that's where it is now...

[McMika98]

Ferrari have one lap advantage but in race trim it is about the same as competition. So reliability and tyre management can play its part.

[Hammerfist]

RBR was somewhat themselves in Australia. They messed things up for Bahrain. Simple as that. I don't think they are in huge trouble. The Honda PU has been bullet proof and there is no evidence it is lacking a lot even compared to a Merc or Ferrari to be honest. We already saw that in the in season test; Max put the RBR in P1 in one of the sessions. That means they already started figuring some stuff out during that test. They will surprise a lot of people in China. That is my prediction.

[SmallSoldier]

Ferrari have one lap advantage but in race trim it is about the same as competition. So reliability and tyre management can play its part.

Really? Leclerc was 12 seconds ahead of Hamilton and more than 30 seconds ahead of Verstappen before he had engine issues... Seemed to have way more pace than everyone else.


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[etusch]

Ferrari have one lap advantage but in race trim it is about the same as competition. So reliability and tyre management can play its part.

Really? Leclerc was 12 seconds ahead of Hamilton and more than 30 seconds ahead of Verstappen before he had engine issues... Seemed to have way more pace than everyone else.


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But Vettel ( who is driving another Ferrari ) was beated by Hamilton on track. So maybe Ferrari wanted to show what they are with Leclerc and it ended up with failiure? This is just a teory. We will see it during season.
For example bottas just driving to finish where he is and when he need he pushed and open big gap to Verstappen. But verstappen can not do same because of Redbulls problem at that race.

[pantherxxx]

"Red Bull's Christian Horner Says Ferrari's Fuel 'Smells Like Grapefruit Juice'"
I just can't help but laugh. What a sore loser, and the funniest thing that they were praising Honda after Melbourne, now they're silent about that. I wonder what self-contradictory statements will be made by them in the rest of the season.