2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[venkyhere]

While I don't want to get into the debate of stewards' consistency when meting out penalties, whether they keep changing the criteria, whether they are biased by 'historical offender' status given to certain drivers, etc etc.... all i want to focus on, is :
- Max's start was goofed up, whether human error (most likely) or whether a system issue, that is the reason he lost the race.
-Max having a bad start is nature doing it's statistical averaging, whatever be the root cause for it.
-given the capability of MCL39 and all the aces up it's sleeve, it's rare for Max to get a chance at winning a race on a high-speed low-deg track (the only conditions where RB21 is competitive). He nailed it in Suzuka, he lost it in Jeddah.
- that said, P2 is not a bad thing to have; Redbull&Max would have taken 87 trailing 99 after 5 rounds, if offered the next day after the 3day Bahrain test.

All in all, Redbull's race winning chances in 2024 is like other teams' chances at a race win in 2022-2023 seasons - rare occasions when the conditions don't allow the dominant car to assert it's dominance. At some point, reality needs to be accepted. People in this thread are getting disappointed because their expectation is very high, that Max will be genuine WDC contender. I don't think so, since even if PIA and NOR are taking wins off each other, it's more than likely that P3 is the highest available position, on average, across the 24 races. Even a guy of Max's calibre needs the car under him to fight for WDC.

[AR3-GP]

-given the capability of MCL39 and all the aces up it's sleeve, it's rare for Max to get a chance at winning a race on a high-speed low-deg track (the only conditions where RB21 is competitive). He nailed it in Suzuka, he lost it in Jeddah.
- that said, P2 is not a bad thing to have; Redbull&Max would have taken 87 trailing 99 after 5 rounds, if offered the next day after the 3day Bahrain test.

Jeddah is not abrasive, but there can be thermal degradation. The track temperature is very high and high speed corners put a lot of temperature into the tires. Mercedes overheated their tires (blistering) and were losing over a second a lap. Max didn't struggle so much. Piastri was struggling at the end of stint 1. I think Red Bull have made a genuine improvement. These were the softer compounds where you would have expected them to suffer. Marko says they are no longer blindly following the simulator, but instead working from real world experience to make setups for the car.

[Sergej]

It's quite strange that nobody from the team ever mentioned the rumored internal whatever upgrade, if that's the reason for yesterday good pace/degradation I think someone like Marko would have jumped over it. Let's see if these days something pops out from more trusted Red Bull sources.

[AR3-GP]

I think people (viewers, commentators, team, etc) are just caught up with lap 1. The media failed to ask the good questions. Hopefully more will trickle out this week about the upgrades, what they did, and whether Red Bull understand why they were fast.

If the upgrades start working, Jeddah doesn't matter, there's plenty of time to recoup those points with an actual fast car.

[Xyz22]

I'm not surprised about the pace in the race to be honest. I was a bit in quali because i didn't think McL was doing quali run in FP3.

Clean air is just so important that even Leclerc didn't even think for a second to attack Russell despite having the pace.

The main issue is that they always need FP1 and FP2 to understand how to setup the car which maybe isn't ideal to find that last bit of performance.

Miami is going to be a very interesting test.

[f1isgood]

Re Penalty: Fair but I would 100 percent do what Max did by taking an advantage for a penalty. Red Bull couldn't have known the car would actually be good.

I don't get the logic. I would think, that the worse the car the more you would like to avoid the penalty.

If Max had terrible deg, he would have been overtaken on track by Piastri, and he wouldn't have been able to create a gap to Russell/Charles so he would have just lost position to them as well with the penalty. Vs giving back 1 place to Piastri, losing 1 place and 1.5 sec in the process, then try to keep Merc/Ferrari behind on track.

Sticking to a penalty only makes sense if you have a very quick car and you believe, you can create the penalty gap in free air.

So far, the car's performance this season indicates the following: If the car is decent in quali it actually translates to somewhat decent race pace. My expectation after qualification was if Max could pull a Suzuka, which is to drive 50 laps without errors, he would win. In fact, that is actually what would have happened if not for a bad start.

Your argument is centered around the point that you basically give up any chance of a win when you are scared by a potential penalty. In the case where the car degged a lot and he had to fight Mercs and Ferrari, there's really not much to lose. A five second penalty barely throws you off from the number of potential points you gain or lose. Top cars are well clear of the midfield. The points are very lopsided at the top. There's far little difference in finishing P7 and P8 versus P1 and P2. A win was on the cards, and looking at the race as a whole, Max did what he had to after the start. He was the quicker driver but we know that only in hindsight.

[f1isgood]

I think people (viewers, commentators, team, etc) are just caught up with lap 1. The media failed to ask the good questions. Hopefully more will trickle out this week about the upgrades, what they did, and whether Red Bull understand why they were fast.

If the upgrades start working, Jeddah doesn't matter, there's plenty of time to recoup those points with an actual fast car.

Bingo. That's the important thing in all of this.

[Cs98]

I am amazed Verstappen is able to pressure a mclaren, late race... I think he would have won, if he gave the place back.

edit: Heh, it seems Brundle agrees with me.

Very difficult to say. Clean air is important here and I would bet that a lot of that extra deg in the first stint from Piastri came from running close to Max for many laps. For Max to stay within undercut range at the end of the stint he would need a big deg advantage, which he didn't have.

[f1isgood]

I am amazed Verstappen is able to pressure a mclaren, late race... I think he would have won, if he gave the place back.

edit: Heh, it seems Brundle agrees with me.

Very difficult to say. Clean air is important here and I would bet that a lot of that extra deg in the first stint from Piastri came from running close to Max for many laps. For Max to stay within undercut range at the end of the stint he would need a big deg advantage, which he didn't have.

Yeah, this is something everyone seems to ignore. Only cars much quicker could pass yesterday. It was obvious. The delta to pass was not there for Red Bull. We also saw something similar at Jeddah 2023.

[Cs98]

https://i.imgur.com/cuSiyvP.jpeg

Apparently, for the inside car, having the front axel at least alongside the wing mirror is enough.

You know, Max pulled exactly what Oscar pulled here to Lando last year in Texas right? And Max did exactly what Lando did, he overtook off the track.

Lando got a penalty last year, that was fair.

But now because Max is on the receiving end, it’s unfair?

In that case they've changed the standard from before, it used to be that the car on the outside was entitled to space if they were "ahead from the apex", which Max was, marginally.

They could overrule that if they thought that the outside car wasn't making the corner, but it's also kind of hard to make that judgement when you have a car on the inside limiting your ability to turn. Max may not have made corner, Piastri certainly never left space for him to make the corner. Anyways, I think there needs to be some clarification on whether this "guideline" that used to decide has changed.

[FittingMechanics]

I also think that strategically you have to give Red Bull a break. They could have told Max to give the place back (like other teams do, who know their car is faster (Ham/Norris Bahrain), but they were very worried about their race pace and from that perspective you would advise him to stay in front to keep the buffer to Russell. Knowing what we know now, he could have won the race if he immediately gave the place back, but that is hindsight. No one foresaw Red Bull's race pace today and that's still the most positive thing. A car doesn't get that quick out of nowhere. Red Bull have to understand this and see where the development goes.

I think this is 100% spot on.

What I don't agree with though is the wording in the stewards document. They said that Piastri was alongside and he needed to be left room, but if that was the case didn't Max also deserve to be left room?

This is what I understand the rules to be;

Alongside = 50/50 - racing incident - no penalty
Ahead = win the corner - no penalty
Behind = lose the corner - penalty given

On their wording alone, it should have been a racing incident and no penalty given, no?

If Max kept it on track and then Piastri crashed into him (because he was not giving space to Max) then Piastri would get a penalty.

But Max didn't want a crash so he went off, then you can't stay ahead.

In my opinion they should always leave space for other car, this apex gaming is silly.

[chrisc90]

I bet you can go back through countless races and pick up exactly the same scenario's where no penalty was handed out. Not surprised Max was clearly having a 'heated' conversation with MBS when the race had finished.

There was probably more issues with the SC restart with cars not staying behind rather than Lap 1 Turn 1.

[Rikhart]

https://i.imgur.com/cuSiyvP.jpeg

Apparently, for the inside car, having the front axel at least alongside the wing mirror is enough.

You know, Max pulled exactly what Oscar pulled here to Lando last year in Texas right? And Max did exactly what Lando did, he overtook off the track.

Lando got a penalty last year, that was fair.

But now because Max is on the receiving end, it’s unfair?

Ok, explain MEX turn 4 then, Max front axle is alongside NOR wing mirror, MAX keeps his car fully inside the white line, 10 sec penalty.

Yes, exactly this. Are rules based on the drivers names, now? This is an absolutely identical situation, and in both cases Verstappen is penalized for doing the exact opposite of what he did before.

[Paa]

I think people (viewers, commentators, team, etc) are just caught up with lap 1. The media failed to ask the good questions. Hopefully more will trickle out this week about the upgrades, what they did, and whether Red Bull understand why they were fast.

If the upgrades start working, Jeddah doesn't matter, there's plenty of time to recoup those points with an actual fast car.

It is promising, but we also kind of expected Jeddah to be good for RedBull. I would wait until Miami to get my hopes up. Hopefully they'll be able to replicate the good deg+race pace.
Also Miami will be a sprint, so it will put some stress to their "setting up the car based on real track data" approach. I see this as a weakness, as it is super easy to lose FP time, even if it is normal weekend. If corrrelation is not fixed they will be always vulnerable to bad weather, red flags, tech issues during FP, etc

[Cs98]

I also think that strategically you have to give Red Bull a break. They could have told Max to give the place back (like other teams do, who know their car is faster (Ham/Norris Bahrain), but they were very worried about their race pace and from that perspective you would advise him to stay in front to keep the buffer to Russell. Knowing what we know now, he could have won the race if he immediately gave the place back, but that is hindsight. No one foresaw Red Bull's race pace today and that's still the most positive thing. A car doesn't get that quick out of nowhere. Red Bull have to understand this and see where the development goes.

I think this is 100% spot on.

What I don't agree with though is the wording in the stewards document. They said that Piastri was alongside and he needed to be left room, but if that was the case didn't Max also deserve to be left room?

This is what I understand the rules to be;

Alongside = 50/50 - racing incident - no penalty
Ahead = win the corner - no penalty
Behind = lose the corner - penalty given

On their wording alone, it should have been a racing incident and no penalty given, no?

If Max kept it on track and then Piastri crashed into him (because he was not giving space to Max) then Piastri would get a penalty.

But Max didn't want a crash so he went off, then you can't stay ahead.

In my opinion they should always leave space for other car, this apex gaming is silly.

That's not how it works. Stewards need to decide who was ahead and who was entitled to space. If Max was ahead when he went off (he was, marginally), and he was entitled to space (they say he wasn't), he keeps the position even if he cuts the track. The question here is what standard they are applying for when the outside car is entitled to space. Going by the standard we've had in the past (outside car being ahead from the apex gets space) Max has a solid case for keeping the position. Maybe those guidelines have changed but nothing new has been published. As others have pointed out Verstappen was penalised for doing what Piastri did in Mexico 2024.