2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Farnborough]

How come in 2023 they always had cold tires that were slow to go to temperature , and in 2024 and 2025 they always have tire overheating? What is the technical change that occurred and why can it not be reverted?

In 2023, each weekend GP would tell Max about the tires being cool and then a few laps into the race tell him when the tires were “ready”. From the very first weekend in 2024 this never happened again. In fact, Max had been reporting that the tires were already too hot often halfway through the outlap! This kind of message was reported in so many free practice sessions.

How is such a change possible? What changed?

It's interesting because so many things CAN change in affecting this.

Tyre heat structural comes from stress induced movement out of conflict in running the carcass misalignment.

If the tyre all stood up perpendicular, with no toe or any other conflict to produce flex, then they'd likely warm slowly and last a long time IF enough downforce is produced. McL appear closest to this in an ideal world.

Any movement in static alignment starts to stress and heat the tyre. RB in Japan appeared more (not massive) this way, with obviously more rear camber that may be response to lower rear wing load. An opposing strategy in other words.

McL seemed to have advantage through the S1 curves, but couldn't USE that in race. Should have capitalised in Q to get track position. Then came the tradeoff of RB holding sway out onto start finish while keeping out of DRS, then just throwing dice at keeping tyre temps down.

In Car thread RB has notable rear cake tin on car (don't know when) that LOOKS to flow air in greater quantity around inside of rim and outside of brake disc/caliper. It further LOOKS that the air is scourced from brake cooling duct, so "cold" supply then.
There's less heat available from brake at rear because of regeneration, also rears are easy to heat with torque & lateral loading. Plausible that they are chasing cooling here to help manage rim and tyre peak temps, which may or not have come on for this race onwards (wasn't imaged before japan) and so could also have influenced it here, furthermore COULD be a very positive attribute as race ambient temperature climbs.

I don't feel it's the "same " car coming back to Bahrain as was tested, experience added, balance more learnt etc. They seem to have advanced more than immediate competitors RELATIVE to the pace they all experienced during testing.

We'll obviously get a measure of this in a couple of days. I think projection on forum has just been rolling out the status quo of testing earlier. We really can't know though where everyone is and expected SHOULD be some shift in that historic outlook.

[organic]

Fight for a podium at Bahrain and maybe if the setup is good fight for win at Jeddah

[Farnborough]

Fight for a podium at Bahrain and maybe if the setup is good fight for win at Jeddah

In reality, we do have no idea about pace that's coming here.

Logically, there's more apparent understanding advance from RB over those first few races than others seem to have acquired. Specific attributes here thuoczn be very narrow in exactly how it brings pace.

Definitely interesting to see the stats once they start running,, temperature likely to show quite different than test though. Ultimately its all up in the air until the fuel comes out and the engines get wound up.

[venkyhere]

How come in 2023 they always had cold tires that were slow to go to temperature , and in 2024 and 2025 they always have tire overheating? What is the technical change that occurred and why can it not be reverted?

In 2023, each weekend GP would tell Max about the tires being cool and then a few laps into the race tell him when the tires were “ready”. From the very first weekend in 2024 this never happened again. In fact, Max had been reporting that the tires were already too hot often halfway through the outlap! This kind of message was reported in so many free practice sessions.

How is such a change possible? What changed?

I am inclined to set the scenario from a high school physics perspective. What governs 'tyre temperature' ?
1. size and geometry of contact patch
2. flex/unflex vertically and laterally
3. amount of scrubbing
4. amount of heat imparted/removed
5. amount of torque exerted
6. on top of this, air temp and track temp.

What factors influence 1-5 ?
Tyre pressure, rubber compound, force exerted on contact patch (aero-downforce, spring/damper rates), amount of contact patch 'compressing'/'twisting' from subjective driving style via teering/pedals, geometry of wheel alignment (toe, camber, scrub radius), brake duct design and aero design around the areas near the tyre, PU setting alongwith deployment strategy (engine mode, gear selected, diff settings) and brake pressure.

In other words, it looks like an engineering version of a tightrope walk while fighting a chilly wind (environment) while handling a phone call from the spouse (the driver inputs). I will be surprised if they make a change anywhere on the car, and the tyre temp (and thus it's life) is not influenced. The 'art' of designing the car and setting up the car for a specific track, is to 'see the influence of these factors clearly' and account for it in the design/setup in way that keeps the tyre temps 'in the good window' for the rubber compound + min air pressure (chosen by Pirelli, external restriction), for each particular track for specific weather conditions.

[venkyhere]

A nice video demonstrating Norris' sharpness and Verstappen's awareness :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym_41isdim8

So Norris almost risked speeding in pitlane to try to overtake Max...on the grass not sure I would call it "sharpness"

I was talking about 'sharpness' specifically in reference to how accurately he removed the pit lane delimiter in relation to the line on the tarmac, removing the 'margin' these drivers usually keep.

[Vettel165]

Also pirelli is bringing the hardest tyres for Bahrain GP. We will see what that means.

[AR3-GP]

Also pirelli is bringing the hardest tyres for Bahrain GP. We will see what that means.

Same as last year, but last year's car preferred the C3 at this track. This year's car prefers the harder ones ̶(̶C̶4̶,̶ ̶C̶5̶)̶
(C1, C2)

[organic]

Also pirelli is bringing the hardest tyres for Bahrain GP. We will see what that means.

Same as last year, but last year's car preferred the C3 at this track. This year's car prefers the harder ones (C4, C5)

you've jsut got the compoundds the wrong way around. C1 hardest, c5 softest. But yes: fortunately this car likes hard compounds. Likely our end of race pace could be decent again, but we'll get demolished in the early stints again by McLaren. Maybe a late SC please?

[Paa]

Likely our end of race pace could be decent again, but we'll get demolished in the early stints again by McLaren. Maybe a late SC please?

Is there enough evidence to support this?
I only remember such behavior from China main race. But we also saw Red Bull being slow and tyre eater with low fuel in China sprint. Then Red Bull seemed to have pretty consistent relative pace to others across the stints in Japan.
So I would say it is inconclusive at best. Probably mostly depends on how they manage to set-up the car, which seems to be a hit or miss at the moment.

(I did not mention Australia, as it was wet and chaotic

[f1isgood]

Likely our end of race pace could be decent again, but we'll get demolished in the early stints again by McLaren. Maybe a late SC please?

Is there enough evidence to support this?
I only remember such behavior from China main race. But we also saw Red Bull being slow and tyre eater with low fuel in China sprint. Then Red Bull seemed to have pretty consistent relative pace to others across the stints in Japan.
So I would say it is inconclusive at best. Probably mostly depends on how they manage to set-up the car, which seems to be a hit or miss at the moment.

(I did not mention Australia, as it was wet and chaotic

I think the behavior is consistent with hard compounds and low fuel. Wasn't China sprint with mediums?

[AR3-GP]

Also pirelli is bringing the hardest tyres for Bahrain GP. We will see what that means.

Same as last year, but last year's car preferred the C3 at this track. This year's car prefers the harder ones (C4, C5)

you've jsut got the compoundds the wrong way around. C1 hardest, c5 softest. But yes: fortunately this car likes hard compounds. Likely our end of race pace could be decent again, but we'll get demolished in the early stints again by McLaren. Maybe a late SC please?

Yes, the tire thing is a mistake. Any sort of late race SC benefits RBR. We have seen this in Australia and it would have been the case in China (would have beaten Russell imo).

[f1isgood]

Same as last year, but last year's car preferred the C3 at this track. This year's car prefers the harder ones (C4, C5)

you've jsut got the compoundds the wrong way around. C1 hardest, c5 softest. But yes: fortunately this car likes hard compounds. Likely our end of race pace could be decent again, but we'll get demolished in the early stints again by McLaren. Maybe a late SC please?

Yes, the tire thing is a mistake. Any sort of late race SC benefits RBR. We have seen this in Australia and it would have been the case in China (would have beaten Russell imo).

China going too slow in stint one was maybe a bigger issue, only in hindsight. No one foresaw that pace in the last stint.

[organic]

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... r-f1-team/

The Race suggests that the Imola upgrade package will take further steps away from the 2024 rb20 concept and will aim to widen window, add downforce and improve tyre management.

The RB21, so far, has appeared visually similar to its RB20 predecessor. However, a major upgrade package is expected soon, marking a more significant departure from the 2024 concept.

The engineers, led by Pierre Wache, hope that these changes will ease the learning curve required by the car. Verstappen himself has voiced frustration about struggling to find a comfortable set-up quickly on race weekends, a rare admission from the otherwise dominant champion.

Should the updates succeed in broadening the car's operating window, they may offer a lifeline to Red Bull's embattled second seat. Until then, it remains Verstappen versus the field - and sometimes, even versus the car.

The upgrades that will arrive, in addition to having the goal of making the car easier to understand, will try to increase the downforce and improve tyre management, especially in hot temperatures, where the car was shown to struggle last year.

Racing Bulls shares a Red Bull mechanical base (gearbox, engine and suspension), and the VCARB 02 has proven to be a great car. So could Red Bull find some solutions in-house?

[organic]

Verstappen ahead of Bahrain

"The tyre wear will be more serious," Verstappen told RacingNews365 among others. "In the first stint in Australia we were destroyed, mainly by overheating. The same was true for China and also in Japan it happened to a certain extent. You just couldn't overtake. Lando Norris closed in on me at the end of the first stint in Japan. I knew that was coming, so I drove my own pace. The asphalt temperature was just a lot lower. That helped us."

In Bahrain it will only be very hot, Verstappen sees. "We drive in the evening. It cools down a bit, but it remains hot and aggressive asphalt. On paper that is not ideal for us compared to McLaren if you look at this season. It is up to us to find improvements in the behavior of the car, also with the tires. It is not good enough at the moment, but we know that."

[AR3-GP]

I wonder what will happen with Dan Fallows. Maybe he returns to Red Bull. Red Bull once fought very hard for him not to go. They would benefit from a fresh perspective on the issues. Some people just don't gel in certain places. James Allison never made it happen at Ferrari.