2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[etusch]

Good analysis from Palmer and he explains very well why verstappen couldn't re overtake ham at 8:20 of video.

[Wouter]

Jos Verstappen, yesterday on Ziggo, Dutch TV.

“It was such a bummer,” Jos starts. “We had the car to win, everyone saw that. It’s just that strategically Mercedes did an excellent job in Bahrain. Everyone, including us, assumed Hamilton would opt for the three-stop strategy. If you are in second place, you can take the risk of going for a longer third stint. If you don’t, you know for sure you’ll come in second. And should you fail, you’re still second, Bottas couldn’t keep up and Perez wasn’t behind as defense.”

Jos is optimistic though: “The good thing this year is that we know that we can fight again for first place in the next race. We haven’t been in this position these last few years.”
Jos isn’t afraid that Mercedes will catch up in the next three weeks: “We’re not sleeping on the job either.
We are awake too and I know what’s coming up regarding development."
“We’re ready for it. It’s going to be an incredibly thrilling year. I’m sure of it.”

https://verstappen.com/en/article/4327/

[raymondu999]

they have Newey [...] maybe it's just as simple as Mercedes having better engineers?

Newey isn't a God* and no one designs a whole car in F1 these days. Newey will set the overall idea and maybe has a hand in certain aspects but much is designed and detailed by a team of others. Maybe Mercedes's "team of others" is just better than Red Bull's "team of others".

What will be interesting is to see what happens as people move around the paddock. Watch where the talent goes and see how teams' fortunes change.


(* Newey isn't a God but he's definitely serious F1 Designer Royalty)

Is AN not more of a consultant role in RBT now? I thought they had their previous 3 “heads” of aero/chassis/design etc now workinf as a triad of sorts and Newey just being a guiding voice

[godlameroso]

It's a matter of your strengths. Newey is a genius when it comes to the overall car concept, that's his bread and butter. It's up to the 3 headed dragon to manufacture his vision, and the people under them micro manage all the details.

Some people are great at small little details, that are important, some people are great in a macro sense at the expense of those little details. It's having the organization that can meld the different personalities effectively that makes RBR so effective. This is where Horner excels in my opinion, more than politics and chatting it up with F1 he runs a tight ship, like the British version of Andreas Seidl.

[MKlaus]

why is suddenly newey is a genius? while in the past no doubt he was marvellous, there is nothing in RB16B, other than some of the balance issues that plagued in the last years aren't there and importantly, mercedes have regressed more than red bull. we have a long season in front of us and let the season be over before we crown him, again. a car isn't designed by an individual and the credit should go to an entire team. it's a disservice to all those men and women that slog back in the factory.

[Snorked]

Marko interview by Formel1.de



- had to turn power down in race because of heat

- problems were primarily software related, no issue in hardware

[godlameroso]

Slopoke has some asplainin to do.

[Juzh]

Pekef1 on twitter who regularly does telemetry analysis did some interesting mercedes vs honda comparisons on race laps. Bottom line is mercedes was better on ERS deployment in the race. This is something I also noticed myself even before seeing this comparison:


This would be consistent with what we've heard from Tanabe that they'll look into running more aggressive power settings during races and recently Marko's comments about having do run detuned. Would also explain how they went from really having more power to deploy during quali to suddenly being inferior to mercedes on sunday.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... s/5985939/

here's some quali comparisons for those interested. I really recommend following peke's twitter, lately he puts out amazing stuff:


In this tweet chain first image is from FP2 (look at laptimes), so don't be confused. Second tweet shows Q3 laps and here it's obvious Honda was holding back more power for quali


I just hope honda/RB solve their issues. Combined with running detuned and diff problem on top it's no wonder Verstappen could make the pass stick. What's encouraging is that speed traces are almost perfectly overlapped on acceleration. This means mercedes no longer holds outright power advantage, something which saved them last year (and years before) time and time again, even when they had handling problems on occassion.

[bigblue]

there is nothing in RB16B, other than some of the balance issues that plagued in the last years aren't there and importantly, mercedes have regressed more than red bull

Quite a strange way of looking at it (if I interpret this correctly as meaning something along the lines of the RB16B being "just" a minor tidy-yp of the RB16, but the main thing is that Mercedes were hamstrung by the regulation changes - maybe you didn't mean that, but it sort of reads that way to me).

Everyone regressed due to the regulation changes. The challenge was then to advance again from that. So maybe Red Bull just did a better job over winter. On the other hand, maybe the above interpretation is right, and the changes hit Mercedes harder than Red Bull and so they were disadvantaged more, and despite gaining a similar amount they still lost out. You'd also have to factor in that they also started from a better position before the changes.

If nothing else, Honda seem to have made a massive effort that incudes packaging enhancements, which helps to allow the redesigned rear end of the RB16B, so there's quite a lot of work there alone from both car and engine.

[Slo Poke]

Slopoke has some asplainin to do.

How-so, why-so Godlameroso..? Didn’t Slo Poke merely predict racing at the front this year?
I may have slipped up slightly last race but next race could be might be a bit better!

[godlameroso]

Slopoke has some asplainin to do.

How-so, why-so Godlameroso..? Didn’t Slo Poke merely predict racing at the front this year?
I may have slipped up slightly last race but next race could be might be a bit better!

Yes he did, and it's pretty darn cool. Yeah, Hamilton is pretty good at extending his stints, so yeah, he had some good outlaps, he took some life out of the engine to do that, let's see how it plays out over the season.

Teething issues I can live with.

[Slo Poke]

Slopoke has some asplainin to do.

How-so, why-so Godlameroso..? Didn’t Slo Poke merely predict racing at the front this year?
I may have slipped up slightly last race but next race could be might be a bit better!

Yes he did, and it's pretty darn cool. Yeah, Hamilton is pretty good at extending his stints, so yeah, he had some good outlaps, he took some life out of the engine to do that, let's see how it plays out over the season.

Teething issues I can live with.

One major teething issue I thought I’d seen, was the signing of young master Perez. Extremely Pleased I was wrong about him! The presence of mind to reboot the car, first lap, first race for a new to him team is not to be sniffed at. His overtaking was equally impressive also.
Something he’s reputed to have said at some point though has set me a wondering just a tad. Apparently he’s made it known that he doesn’t yet feel fluent enough when driving the car. Well he seemed fluent enough to me! You know! There’s a widespread misconception about how top level racers ‘become one with the car’ and that as-far-as I’m concerned is hogwash. A top level racer makes the car become one with the track he’s racing on and then settles into consistency. What’s more if Mr. Perez reads this comment he’ll find racing anyone a whole lot easier and RedBull Racing Honda will have everything they need.

[ispano6]

they have Newey [...] maybe it's just as simple as Mercedes having better engineers?

Newey isn't a God* and no one designs a whole car in F1 these days. Newey will set the overall idea and maybe has a hand in certain aspects but much is designed and detailed by a team of others. Maybe Mercedes's "team of others" is just better than Red Bull's "team of others".

What will be interesting is to see what happens as people move around the paddock. Watch where the talent goes and see how teams' fortunes change.


(* Newey isn't a God but he's definitely serious F1 Designer Royalty)

Is AN not more of a consultant role in RBT now? I thought they had their previous 3 “heads” of aero/chassis/design etc now workinf as a triad of sorts and Newey just being a guiding voice

In the Honda documentary, it was said Newey personally thanked Honda for the new PU that made the RB16b a better car to design aerodynamically. So don't listen to the trolls too much, team Red Bull Honda knows what's up.

[MKlaus]

there is nothing in RB16B, other than some of the balance issues that plagued in the last years aren't there and importantly, mercedes have regressed more than red bull

Quite a strange way of looking at it (if I interpret this correctly as meaning something along the lines of the RB16B being "just" a minor tidy-yp of the RB16, but the main thing is that Mercedes were hamstrung by the regulation changes - maybe you didn't mean that, but it sort of reads that way to me).

Everyone regressed due to the regulation changes. The challenge was then to advance again from that. So maybe Red Bull just did a better job over winter. On the other hand, maybe the above interpretation is right, and the changes hit Mercedes harder than Red Bull and so they were disadvantaged more, and despite gaining a similar amount they still lost out. You'd also have to factor in that they also started from a better position before the changes.

If nothing else, Honda seem to have made a massive effort that incudes packaging enhancements, which helps to allow the redesigned rear end of the RB16B, so there's quite a lot of work there alone from both car and engine.

the regulations change intended to cut 10% downforce from the car, which is anywhere from 1 second to 1.5 seconds and they increased the tyre size by 3 kgs, which is worth a tenth of two. it makes the cumulative losses (on the higher scale) around 1.7 seconds.
consider honda has added 3 tenths with their power improvement and allowed another 2 tenths for packaging, then the losses should have been around 1.2 seconds. what we saw in bahrain was, rb16b was down by 1.5 seconds in quali trim compared to rb16.
mercedes w12 was down by little over 2 seconds compared to w11. that tells you, rb didn't improve significantly, despite honda offering more power and packaging flexibility. it's mercedes that regressed more. that is why i said, rb16b is refined on balance issues, but down on chassis performance. nothing really seems to have recovered on chassis side from the loss of performance.
if you don't read it as if someone is against red bull and all that sort, you might find a good perspective of what i am saying.

[PhillipM]

The tyres themselves are also harder and they're about half a second a lap slower than last years tyres from that alone, never mind the extra weight.

I think the tyre weight is a lot more significant an increase than you give it credit for too - it's not just the outright intertial losses there, but also the change to the unsprung weight hampers the performance and stability of the aero platform of the cars especially in lower speed corners.