2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[pantherxxx]

But how can Haas build a better chassic than Red Bull? Haas have like 170 engineers working there, and Red Bull have 700+ (According to Linkedin, and excluding the engine). Something is not right. Either they still have correlation issues with the wind tunnel, which Wache said they wouldn't have this year, or they started working super late on the RB22, and the car is just not finished properly.

Another possibility I’m thinking of is that because they didn’t just fire Horner, but a big part of the management team—a whole bunch of people who worked under Horner. What if, without them, the team can’t properly coordinate the operational processes within the budget cap, and the workflow isn’t optimized? Yes, they brought in Mekies, but he was previously the team principal at Racing Bulls, and now the car is barely better than the Racing Bulls’ car. They parted ways with Horner, the big gun who built the team, and now it’s being led by people who haven’t proven themselves at a top-tier F1 team yet.

[f1isgood]

But how can Haas build a better chassic than Red Bull? Haas have like 170 engineers working there, and Red Bull have 700+ (According to Linkedin, and excluding the engine). Something is not right. Either they still have correlation issues with the wind tunnel, which Wache said they wouldn't have this year, or they started working super late on the RB22, and the car is just not finished properly.

Another possibility I’m thinking of is that because they didn’t just fire Horner, but a big part of the management team—a whole bunch of people who worked under Horner. What if, without them, the team can’t properly coordinate the operational processes within the budget cap, and the workflow isn’t optimized? Yes, they brought in Mekies, but he was previously the team principal at Racing Bulls, and now the car is barely better than the Racing Bulls’ car. They parted ways with Horner, the big gun who built the team, and now it’s being led by people who haven’t proven themselves at a top-tier F1 team yet.

--- happens. I think they'll eventually recover but no amount of excuses can justify such a terrible showing. It's just going to be a very difficult few months. It's actually embarrassing to be starting like this regardless of all senior staff leaving.

[Valeo]

The only thing that's "positive" for me - the car is visibly struggling on track and handling poor which means serious laptime is left on the table.
Imagine the balance would be good and they would be equally slow...

[Badger]

But how can Haas build a better chassic than Red Bull? Haas have like 170 engineers working there, and Red Bull have 700+ (According to Linkedin, and excluding the engine). Something is not right. Either they still have correlation issues with the wind tunnel, which Wache said they wouldn't have this year, or they started working super late on the RB22, and the car is just not finished properly.

Another possibility I’m thinking of is that because they didn’t just fire Horner, but a big part of the management team—a whole bunch of people who worked under Horner. What if, without them, the team can’t properly coordinate the operational processes within the budget cap, and the workflow isn’t optimized? Yes, they brought in Mekies, but he was previously the team principal at Racing Bulls, and now the car is barely better than the Racing Bulls’ car. They parted ways with Horner, the big gun who built the team, and now it’s being led by people who haven’t proven themselves at a top-tier F1 team yet.

If Horner was still there the car would have the same issues and the correlation problems would be the same. These issues seeped in under his leadership and the technical team that built this car is Horner's. The people that were fired alongside him were his marketing pals, not the technical leadership. Your comment shows a lack of understanding for how long it takes to change the internals of a team. Mekies in 6 months can't undo what Horner did in 20 years, and it's not like he's been trying to, he's kept people in place.

Not that it matters because I don't think this is a people problem. This is about the systems the team uses for correlating development in CAD and the wind tunnel to the track. Great engineers can design solutions that don't work if they are looking through a distorted lens.

[vorticism]

The machinery of RBR surely is good. Then again, so is AMR's. You don't have a executive and board fiasco like they did for two years, without consequences. Offering no explanations for what happened only made things worse. Things like that kill the spirit of an organization, because it makes everyone who's not in the know feel irrelevant. Erodes confidence, erodes trust. Horner left to hundreds of employees giving him a round of applause. Read into that what you will. I'd say their issues now are more spiritual than technical.

[venkyhere]

The issues appear to extend beyond simple aerodynamic mapping problems. Sources suggest the troubles stem from inadequate integration between the car's dynamic response, particularly the suspension system, and the load variations created by aerodynamic distribution changes across different track sections.

https://racingnews365.com/major-red-bul ... a-struggle

It gives me no pleasure, this 'told you so' moment ; but if a layman like me could 'guess' it, shows that it's a concept problem, nothing to do with 'we started late last year'. Perhaps the loss of Rob Marshall has finally 'come full circle', especially considering the stellar job he did with the McL39's front suspension.

I wouldn't be surprised if RBR finishes the season behind Audi. Looking at how they are doing so many basic changes to the aero, it's clear that they are struggling to establish even 'basic balance' in the car, despite so many changes to packaging/aero between Bahrain & Japan. I originally thought 'it can't be that bad', but it does look like it - nothing they do is providing any sort of result on the track, so much so that I am inclined to think that the mechanics/kinematics (suspension design) is flawed. The car has entry understeer and exit oversteer, no matter what corner type, what track, what packaging/aero mods. It has to be something utterly basic that's wrong with chassis.

Edit : even Mekies concurs. His take is even more pessimistic than mine https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/laur ... /10808483/

[Badger]

Listening to the comments of Monaghan it seems like the problems are not really aerodynamic in nature, more like the mechanical platform and balance is all over the place in every type of corner.

[AR3-GP]

It doesn't look too bright, but we are not going to get an accurate picture until they reach the weight limit. It could still be bad, but then there is more certainty. The break between Japan and Miami is a good time to make improvements.

[vorticism]

But how can Haas build a better chassic than Red Bull? Haas have like 170 engineers working there, and Red Bull have 700+ (According to Linkedin, and excluding the engine). Something is not right. Either they still have correlation issues with the wind tunnel, which Wache said they wouldn't have this year, or they started working super late on the RB22, and the car is just not finished properly.

Another possibility I’m thinking of is that because they didn’t just fire Horner, but a big part of the management team—a whole bunch of people who worked under Horner. What if, without them, the team can’t properly coordinate the operational processes within the budget cap, and the workflow isn’t optimized? Yes, they brought in Mekies, but he was previously the team principal at Racing Bulls, and now the car is barely better than the Racing Bulls’ car. They parted ways with Horner, the big gun who built the team, and now it’s being led by people who haven’t proven themselves at a top-tier F1 team yet.

If Horner was still there the car would have the same issues and the correlation problems would be the same. These issues seeped in under his leadership and the technical team that built this car is Horner's. The people that were fired alongside him were his marketing pals, not the technical leadership. Your comment shows a lack of understanding for how long it takes to change the internals of a team. Mekies in 6 months can't undo what Horner did in 20 years, and it's not like he's been trying to, he's kept people in place.

Not that it matters because I don't think this is a people problem. This is about the systems the team uses for correlating development in CAD and the wind tunnel to the track. Great engineers can design solutions that don't work if they are looking through a distorted lens.

As it relates, see Ayao's response to the question at 4:05.

[f1isgood]

It's not easy to stay at the top but going straight behind customer teams was not on my cards.

[nitrotech]

It doesn't look too bright, but we are not going to get an accurate picture until they reach the weight limit. It could still be bad, but then there is more certainty. The break between Japan and Miami is a good time to make improvements.

I don't think Red Bull is coming back anytime soon. After the loss of Newey and Rob Marshall, there isn't anyone currently at Red Bull that understands vehicle dynamics as good as them. Likely, this is the end of Red Bull as we have known until last year. It's most likely the spiral downwards.

[venkyhere]

Didn't watch FP3, but when I try to look at Telemetry, it seems the database is off/skewed w.r.t FP1/2 and hence comparing the traces is meaningless.

However, sector times look like this :

FP1 1:32.456
S1 33.292
S2 41.096
S3 18.069

FP2 1:31.509
S1 33.053
S2 40.720
S3 17.736

FP3 1:30.909
S1 32.659
S2 40.516
S3 17.735

Sector times have monotonically improved from FP1->FP2->FP3. That can be attributed to setup tuning to 'bridge the simulator config gap' that stems from correlation issues, just like last two years. However, despite a sizeable improvement (1.5s+ in two sessions), it looks like this is the 'performance ceiling' of the car. Even if there were 3 more FPs, I don't think the time would get 'tuned' beyond gaining a tenth or two.

[euv2]

Didn't watch FP3, but when I try to look at Telemetry, it seems the database is off/skewed w.r.t FP1/2 and hence comparing the traces is meaningless.

However, sector times look like this :

FP1 1:32.456
S1 33.292
S2 41.096
S3 18.069

FP2 1:31.509
S1 33.053
S2 40.720
S3 17.736

FP3 1:30.909
S1 32.659
S2 40.516
S3 17.735

Sector times have monotonically improved from FP1->FP2->FP3. That can be attributed to setup tuning to 'bridge the simulator config gap' that stems from correlation issues, just like last two years. However, despite a sizeable improvement (1.5s+ in two sessions), it looks like this is the 'performance ceiling' of the car. Even if there were 3 more FPs, I don't think the time would get 'tuned' beyond gaining a tenth or two.

The lack of downforce is very obvious, the car is competing with Audi and others in sector 1 esses. Max went like +3, +5 and +6 on front wing angle in FP3 to help with understeer in high speed and still the sector 1 times were barely improving.

[euv2]

Every time Max goes through the esses section I'm expecting him to crash, the car looks so nervous, it's incredible. Car is now slower than Racing bulls and Audi

[Emag]

Every time Max goes through the esses section I'm expecting him to crash, the car looks so nervous, it's incredible. Car is now slower than Racing bulls and Audi

Even with all that, he was faster than Hadjar in S1 actually. He lost out in S2 and S3.