2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Juzh]

Yeah 9 tenths is exaggerated simply down to having no banker lap makes you more cautious on your final one, but Perez was 0.75s behind in Q2 as well. Verstappen completely mopped the floor with him.
I think this car is in reality not that close to mercedes as how Verstappen makes it look like.

So you are saying that the Mercedes car is faster?
So when Max is only 0.036 sec behind Lewis in a slower car ---> Max is a better driver than Lewis this afternoon.

Better is a strong and all encompassing word, perhaps also premature. After all it's 7 time world champion against 0 time WC, and that can not be just swept aside. Instead I prefer just faster over one lap. For now.

And yes, mercedes is a faster car, and has been in race trim from imola and in quali trim from portimao onwards.

[PlatinumZealot]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

[dans79]

And I am forgetting stuff here as well.

Max took a new exhaust system component in Portugal. The FIA started quietly tracking exhaust system component usage this year. It was kind of slid in under the radar in my opinion.

The update doc from Portugal.
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... _event.pdf

the PU usage doc from Spain.
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... to_now.pdf

The sporting regulations where it talks about tracking the exhaust component usage.
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... 4-28_1.pdf

You need to actually read this section as well, because some words are highlighted pink, while others are crossed out.


23.3a

Unless he drives for more than one (1) Competitor (see 23.3(c) below), and subject to the
additions described below, each driver may use no more than 3 engines (ICE), 3 motor
generator units-heat (MGU-H), 3 turbochargers (TC), 2 energy stores (ES), 2 control
electronics (CE), 3 motor generator units-kinetic (MGU-K) and eight (8) sets of each of the
four (4) elements constituting a set of Engine exhaust systems during a Championship. For
the purpose of this article, a set of Engine exhaust systems is deemed to comprise the
following four (4) elements: primaries LHS, primaries RHS, secondary LHS and secondary
RHS.

With the consent of (and at the sole discretion of) the FIA, the numbers above will be
increased by one for any driver using a power unit provided by a new power unit
manufacturer (as defined in Appendix 9 of these Sporting Regulations) taking part in their
first Championship.

Should the number of races in the 2021 Championship drop to 19 or less, the permitted
number of motor generator units-kinetic (MGU-K) will be reduced to 2.

[nzjrs]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

FIA collusion, as you have already suggested?

[MKlaus]

Yeah 9 tenths is exaggerated simply down to having no banker lap makes you more cautious on your final one, but Perez was 0.75s behind in Q2 as well. Verstappen completely mopped the floor with him.
I think this car is in reality not that close to mercedes as how Verstappen makes it look like.

So you are saying that the Mercedes car is faster?
So when Max is only 0.036 sec behind Lewis in a slower car ---> Max is a better driver than Lewis this afternoon.

Better is a strong and all encompassing word, perhaps also premature. After all it's 7 time world champion against 0 time WC, and that can not be just swept aside. Instead I prefer just faster over one lap. For now.

And yes, mercedes is a faster car, and has been in race trim from imola and in quali trim from portimao onwards.

you are right. importantly, mercedes biases their setup to the medium tyre so much, they end up being slightly worse on the softer tyres which makes the qualifying close. in races, they bolt the medium and are so much quicker, especially with lewis.

[PlatinumZealot]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

FIA collusion, as you have already suggested?

Oh it only a hypothetical question for the doom and gloomers in this thread. It's pretty clear that there is little between the cars across Q and race. So much so that I would be the first one jumping for joy when a sizeable speed advantage for the Mercedes comes up, but that hasn't materialized yet. To my chagrin of course, RedBull are still very much there, its still wide open.

[godlameroso]

Red Bull always makes small and subtle aero tweaks to get the most out of their package. They made a pretty radical change, it will take a few races to dial it in perfectly, and when they do, Mercedes better have something ready to bolt on the car and offer instant performance. My guess is Mercedes is waiting for France, Red Bull will keep making small tweaks to their package every race until then. To me, that would be the ideal time to switch focus to 2022, shame really that this type of close competition won't happen again for years.

[etusch]

Red Bull always makes small and subtle aero tweaks to get the most out of their package. They made a pretty radical change, it will take a few races to dial it in perfectly, and when they do, Mercedes better have something ready to bolt on the car and offer instant performance. My guess is Mercedes is waiting for France, Red Bull will keep making small tweaks to their package every race until then. To me, that would be the ideal time to switch focus to 2022, shame really that this type of close competition won't happen again for years.

To see close competition is good for us. In the first 2 races Redbull looked a bit faster and last race Merc was looking a bit faster. We will see what happens at this race. I wonder if we see Redbull's development success this year too. They were generally better at second part of season and if they can achieve this this year too, they can be fastest towards the end of season.

Big probably we will lose this close pack next year. I don't know if it is realistic to hope from teams to adopt new rule at same rate of success to keep this close battle. Maybe budget cap will help that.

[Sieper]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

FIA collusion, as you have already suggested?

Oh it only a hypothetical question for the doom and gloomers in this thread. It's pretty clear that there is little between the cars across Q and race. So much so that I would be the first one jumping for joy when a sizeable speed advantage for the Mercedes comes up, but that hasn't materialized yet. To my chagrin of course, RedBull are still very much there, its still wide open.

Wide open with one Merc on pole, and one in P3 right behind it on the race line. The other Bull out of the equation.

Did you see what happened on the run up to the second Q3 run? That is how far they are willing to go with strategy with Bottas who is by now clinging on to the seat for Dear life (I wonder who, cough cough, Toto, brought those rumours of Russell getting the seat mid season already in to existence).

So they have every option to do a similar thing in the race.

[Zynerji]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

Has been for 7 years.

[Pyrone89]

How will redBull stand a chance if Mercedes is the faster race car with more experienced, more steady drivers? It's a forgone conclusion then isn't it?

It is unless RB improves the car more than Merc from now on, or some very unexpected reliability issues strike Merc (dont count on it, the Mercs are bulletproof). For now it looks like another WDC and WCC for Merc, just with RBR closer. But in the last year of a regulation there is no point in being a closer second than before as everything gets reset (so no building on from this smaller gap to Mercedes to properly fight for the WDC in 2022 with same rules, as they will have completely new cars and thus a reset next year anyway). The untrained might think: what are we talking about, only 36 thousands. The people that dig a little deeper sees a pattern since Bahrain testing in which Mercedes went from having clear issues, to a tactical win in Bahrain with better tyre deg, to equal race pace in Imola, to better allround pace and also a straightline advantage in Portimao which is easier to consistently get (RBR gets some faster laps here and there but their car is not as consistently able to put in the lap times, as seen by Perez and the behavior of the car even in Max' hands). The Mercedes W12 is now the fastest in all conditions, on all tyre types, most reliable and most consistent to perform whereas the RBR16B is now very close in quali pace on softs (that is the step they made from last year) but on a knife edge, not reliable enough and not consistently able to perform (Perez and even Max when there is just a slight change of wind).

That is why I put €150 on Merc to win the WDC with Hamilton.

[godlameroso]

Then Honda nails the start.

[SmallSoldier]

Red Bull always makes small and subtle aero tweaks to get the most out of their package. They made a pretty radical change, it will take a few races to dial it in perfectly, and when they do, Mercedes better have something ready to bolt on the car and offer instant performance. My guess is Mercedes is waiting for France, Red Bull will keep making small tweaks to their package every race until then. To me, that would be the ideal time to switch focus to 2022, shame really that this type of close competition won't happen again for years.

To see close competition is good for us. In the first 2 races Redbull looked a bit faster and last race Merc was looking a bit faster. We will see what happens at this race. I wonder if we see Redbull's development success this year too. They were generally better at second part of season and if they can achieve this this year too, they can be fastest towards the end of season.

Big probably we will lose this close pack next year. I don't know if it is realistic to hope from teams to adopt new rule at same rate of success to keep this close battle. Maybe budget cap will help that.

Without the change in regulations, RBR would have looked really good for the second half of the season in a “normal” year... But, with the Budget Cap and the need to focus on 2022 with very little to learn from this year that can be used the next one, I’m afraid RBR won’t go through that second half development phase of previous years


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[etusch]

Red Bull always makes small and subtle aero tweaks to get the most out of their package. They made a pretty radical change, it will take a few races to dial it in perfectly, and when they do, Mercedes better have something ready to bolt on the car and offer instant performance. My guess is Mercedes is waiting for France, Red Bull will keep making small tweaks to their package every race until then. To me, that would be the ideal time to switch focus to 2022, shame really that this type of close competition won't happen again for years.

To see close competition is good for us. In the first 2 races Redbull looked a bit faster and last race Merc was looking a bit faster. We will see what happens at this race. I wonder if we see Redbull's development success this year too. They were generally better at second part of season and if they can achieve this this year too, they can be fastest towards the end of season.

Big probably we will lose this close pack next year. I don't know if it is realistic to hope from teams to adopt new rule at same rate of success to keep this close battle. Maybe budget cap will help that.

Without the change in regulations, RBR would have looked really good for the second half of the season in a “normal” year... But, with the Budget Cap and the need to focus on 2022 with very little to learn from this year that can be used the next one, I’m afraid RBR won’t go through that second half development phase of previous years


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If every year has its own budget and they still have some of it to spent they can go for updates. And if there is possiblity to be champ this year it is more important than next years one which is big unknown. And I think there is always something to transfer next car even if it is just experience.
Maybe delaying some work of next year car' work help them by giving longer planning/brain storming time before starting to built somethings. At the end if you have great concept but not make it work in time because of late start you will start winning again soon. If it is bad you need to start again.

[restless]

Without the change in regulations, RBR would have looked really good for the second half of the season in a “normal” year... But, with the Budget Cap and the need to focus on 2022 with very little to learn from this year that can be used the next one, I’m afraid RBR won’t go through that second half development phase of previous years

Actually I think the Cap & looming 2022 give Max a chance to win.
If, big IF, if Mercedes switch to 2022, RB can instead keep upgrading in order to win with Max.
Yes, this will probably compromise their 2022 chassis.
But, thats their chance! 0 warranty they will be better positioned next year.
I'll argue that next year the competition will be even more fierce - Mclaren will have mature integration with Mercedes engine, Ferrari will no doubt make another engine-step, Alpine is unknown, Mercedes.... ahhhh what if they bring Russel and he is indeed as good as it seems?
So, if I was CH/DM/MV, and mind you Honda, I'd go all guns blazing for winning in 2021.
Whatever it takes.