2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[avantman]

What are you even talking about? Clearly he was having an issue with the PU on the start. You think the ICE just stops pulling at 200 kph because it ran out of power? Leclerc was slower in qualifying but on the start suddenly he has 100 more HP and flies by like he's in a different class?

You can be negative all you want but at least keep it sane.

I am talking about something you clearly did not understand. Try read once again and a bit slower. That helps.

It's a pointless comparison. You have no idea exactly how much battery they started with, and we also don't know how aggressively each PU is programmed to harvest once it runs out.

It was never about Ferrari vs RBPT ice power comparison, Leclerc never said he had batteries issue. But both Russell and Hadjar said they started with empty battery and I’ve taken their words almost literally, assuming quickly after initial stage of acceleration, both were running purely on combustion power. Which appears not to be true for either of them.
Max for example had even better initial getaway than Hadjar looking at their 0-100 numbers, but fell significantly behind from 100 to 200. So, Max’ battery must have been even more “empty” than Hadjar’s.
What’s interesting by the way is that Mercedes powered Sainz had crazy good start, 0,7s faster to 200 than the Ferrari. Bigger turbo doesn’t appear to be as detrimental (starting-wise) vs Ferrari smaller turbo as some thought.

[Badger]

I am talking about something you clearly did not understand. Try read once again and a bit slower. That helps.

It's a pointless comparison. You have no idea exactly how much battery they started with, and we also don't know how aggressively each PU is programmed to harvest once it runs out.

It was never about Ferrari vs RBPT ice power comparison, Leclerc never said he had batteries issue. But both Russell and Hadjar said they started with empty battery and I’ve taken their words almost literally, assuming quickly after initial stage of acceleration, both were running purely on combustion power. Which appears not to be true for either of them.
Max for example had even better initial getaway than Hadjar looking at their 0-100 numbers, but fell significantly behind from 100 to 200. So, Max’ battery must have been even more “empty” than Hadjar’s.
What’s interesting by the way is that Mercedes powered Sainz had crazy good start, 0,7s faster to 200 than the Ferrari. Bigger turbo doesn’t appear to be as detrimental (starting-wise) vs Ferrari smaller turbo as some thought.

That last comment was in regards to Russell and Hadjar.

[avantman]

Anyway, it’s obvious that factory Mercedes has very significant PU advantage, is it ICE or something else. The fact that Hywel Thomas got the honor to step onto the podium and grab teams’s first trophy of this new era screams for itself.

[AR3-GP]

We are also seeing the consequences of maintaining some development on the 2025 car imo. Ferrari switched to 2026 in April of 2025 while Red Bull kept developing the RB21 to try and win the titles.

[f1isgood]

I don't think Red Bull developed with the goal of trying to win any titles. They had one last go with the Monza floor to understand the core of their problems and then only some crazy person would have predicted what happened next.

Ferrari have always started regulations well. It's always been a failure of development there.

[Valeo]

Mekies said the development race starts after China so I guess we can expect the first (bigger) upgrade for Japan.

[Badger]

News on Hadjar's retirement?

[AR3-GP]

Mekies said the development race starts after China so I guess we can expect the first (bigger) upgrade for Japan.

This is when it is rumored that the "macarena" rear wing will debut.

[euv2]

Mekies said the gap to Mercedes in pure pace on this circuit is about 1s, according to Motorsport.nl. They expected to be 4th before the season and are now 3rd-4th. Haven't seen any source of Mekies talking about future updates yet.

[FittingMechanics]

Mekies said the gap to Mercedes in pure pace on this circuit is about 1s, according to Motorsport.nl. They expected to be 4th before the season and are now 3rd-4th. Haven't seen any source of Mekies talking about future updates yet.

Is Wache a Red Bull employee?

[avantman]

Mekies said the gap to Mercedes in pure pace on this circuit is about 1s, according to Motorsport.nl. They expected to be 4th before the season and are now 3rd-4th. Haven't seen any source of Mekies talking about future updates yet.

Yeah, sounds about right. More or less…with the caveat they could not know for sure the genuine pace of the mercedes, because they were not trying too hard on stint 2.

[Juzh]

I looked at Hadjar's onboard, and he definitely had a major problem from lap 1. His battery simply would not recharge no matter what he tried. He was 40 kmh (!) slower from T6-T9 than Lindblad who was around 2s behind him with the same engine and he was lifting off everywhere for ages but it didn't help. Lindblad was gaining seconds on him on straights.

The other thing I noticed is ferrari and mercedes are simply much faster in basically all types of corners, fast ones especially. Verstappen says aero development is useless but that is not case.

[Cassius]

Looking at the telemetry of Max he seemed to lose some deployment in the t8-t11 section from lap 53, compared to his previous laps.

This led him to get dropped by Norris (gap grew from 0.7 to 1.2s). He was in 1.22s but after that moved into the 1.23s.

I think this seemed to be a software glitch. One of quite a few teething problems they will hopefully fix soon.

Max complained about it on the radio.

[Paa]

Interesting that Max probably got a pretty good idea about the Mercedes project from Toto last summer, and he clearly didn’t have high hopes for Red Bull either. Judging by his comments, I think he expected even worse from RBPT. But he still chose to stay.
I wonder what his main reason was, and if he feels any regret now.

[pantherxxx]

https://x.com/FDataAnalysis/status/2030 ... 42/photo/1

Only 0.5 second a lap slower than mercedes despite being in traffic, using wrong tires, and car being overweight.