2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Cs98]

After a season like 2023, anything less than 15 wins will be a very poor result. After losing a single win in 1988, McLaren again lost only 6 races in 1989. Rules are stable, PUs are the same (so no reliability concerns) so there is nothing at all that can work against them in 2024.

If any driver actually manages to get anywhere close to Max in standings, let alone make it an actual c'ship battle, we'll be witnesing a miracle.

That's a bit reductive of what happened last year. A season like 2023 is a combination of one team getting it right and the competition getting it wrong. It seems likely RB will get it right again in 2024 but there's also every chance one of Merc, Ferrari, McLaren, AMR, will get it right too. If that happens they could be taking wins off RB consistently.

[AR3-GP]

RB development & sim driver Jake Dennis made a surprisingly forward quote in a recent interview

The way he talks, so it will be hard to find a second for Mercedes and Ferrari; I thought that once they had gotten free of the limitations of their cars and had the correct understanding of this formula, it would have been “easy” to find a lot of performance.
So, it doesn’t absolutely work as that.

Dennis doesn’t even consider McLaren.

Pirelli had declared that 2023 tires would be a second and half faster than 2022, but the overall car performance at most tracks that were almost constant (tarmac, track conditions etc) like Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the performance difference was less than a second between 2023 and 2022. So if despite the supposedly improved tyres if the cars made barely significant progress, it's difficult to imagine anyone making half a second over their 2023 cars in 2024.

https://scuderiafans.com/pirelli-reveal ... ext%20week.

Don't forget about the floor regulation change. That was reportedly worth half a second or more depending on the car.

[mendis]

The way he talks, so it will be hard to find a second for Mercedes and Ferrari; I thought that once they had gotten free of the limitations of their cars and had the correct understanding of this formula, it would have been “easy” to find a lot of performance.
So, it doesn’t absolutely work as that.

Dennis doesn’t even consider McLaren.

Pirelli had declared that 2023 tires would be a second and half faster than 2022, but the overall car performance at most tracks that were almost constant (tarmac, track conditions etc) like Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the performance difference was less than a second between 2023 and 2022. So if despite the supposedly improved tyres if the cars made barely significant progress, it's difficult to imagine anyone making half a second over their 2023 cars in 2024.

https://scuderiafans.com/pirelli-reveal ... ext%20week.

Don't forget about the floor regulation change. That was reportedly worth half a second or more depending on the car.

You can say high performing tyres offset the loss? Trust Pirelli aye.

Then you had 12 months of development yielding less than a second in the first year of new regulations. It just shows how difficult it is to find time in these regulations with budget and development time restricted era. I won't be believing in miracles for 2024. Anyone that has a headstart performance advantage, would keep it for this short tenure of regulations. McLaren and Aston were so far off in 2022, that making decent progress in 2023 wasn't such a big deal. And then kind of stagnating to close the gap with upgrades while Red Bull barely brought any upgrades, just shows the constraints.

[chrisc90]

RB probably never brought any upgrades knowing their current car had more than enough pace to last the season out vs the others developments.

You could, in theory have a years upgrades on the 2024 car for the start of the season vs the others winter breaks efforts.

Got to ask, where did all the aero development RB have in 2023 go? when they only brought a relatively minor upgrade package half way through the season

[organic]

RB probably never brought any upgrades knowing their current car had more than enough pace to last the season out vs the others developments.

You could, in theory have a years upgrades on the 2024 car for the start of the season vs the others winter breaks efforts.

Got to ask, where did all the aero development RB have in 2023 go? when they only brought a relatively minor upgrade package half way through the season

They changed the sidepods and floor edge wing twice, diffuser once, and engine cover once. That's basically the sum of their performance upgrades. It's more than just one minor upgrade package so let's represent it accurately, but it's also a fair bit less than 2022

Notably in 2023 RB only made one change to their floor body all season - the diffuser sidewall tweak @ Barcelona - whereas most teams used this area as their primary source of laptime gain through development, considering how frequently it was iterated upon. McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all brought at least 3 versions of the floor body throughout the year for instance.

[lio007]

I'd say the cap penalty and their old (not so efficient) WT may also play a role.

[chrisc90]

Whichever way you look at it, a sidepod change in July or a tweak to the diffuser or the edge wing, there was probably significantly more development gone into 2024 than any other team on the grid.

Speculation of course. But its most likely correct.

[lio007]

Whichever way you look at it, a sidepod change in July or a tweak to the diffuser or the edge wing, there was probably significantly more development gone into 2024 than any other team on the grid.

Speculation of course. But its most likely correct.

Luckily they have been in a position to allocate most of their available ATR ressources on the '24 car. And rightly so, because I think in the coming season it won't be as easy as last year.
It's going to be interesting how the competitive order pans out.

[DoctorRadio]

If Dennis was serious about the one second Ferrari and Mercedes need to fight and as Red Bull was half a second faster in race trim than the next fastest car at the end of 2023, they found half a second from RB19 to RB20.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

If Dennis was serious about the one second Ferrari and Mercedes need to fight and as Red Bull was half a second faster in race trim than the next fastest car at the end of 2023, they found half a second from RB19 to RB20.

Nobody said Ferrari found 1 second. All sources says 0.6-0.7 sec. At Aston they talking 1sec+ and at Mercedes.

[DoctorRadio]

If Dennis was serious about the one second Ferrari and Mercedes need to fight and as Red Bull was half a second faster in race trim than the next fastest car at the end of 2023, they found half a second from RB19 to RB20.

Nobody said Ferrari found 1 second. All sources says 0.6-0.7 sec. At Aston they talking 1sec+ and at Mercedes.

I wasn’t talking about Ferrari (BTW for them it’s reported 7 tenths and wouldn’t be bad at all), on Aston and Mercedes I didn’t read any number for them, would you provide the sources for them?
Thanks.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

If Dennis was serious about the one second Ferrari and Mercedes need to fight and as Red Bull was half a second faster in race trim than the next fastest car at the end of 2023, they found half a second from RB19 to RB20.

Nobody said Ferrari found 1 second. All sources says 0.6-0.7 sec. At Aston they talking 1sec+ and at Mercedes.

I wasn’t talking about Ferrari (BTW for them it’s reported 7 tenths and wouldn’t be bad at all), on Aston and Mercedes I didn’t read any number for them, would you provide the sources for them?
Thanks.

Of course they don't talking about numbers, but we know how much they was jump last year. So it was 1sec+ and 2023 early December Aston said they don't think os possible the same jump. At 2024 January Aston says the same jump is very possible. So if they just change mind and say so ,then they achieved it . Also coming out news about "Alonso cooking again",and Crack can't wait "nail biting " what other teams did at winter. Just have to read between the lines...

[organic]

Nobody said Ferrari found 1 second. All sources says 0.6-0.7 sec. At Aston they talking 1sec+ and at Mercedes.

I wasn’t talking about Ferrari (BTW for them it’s reported 7 tenths and wouldn’t be bad at all), on Aston and Mercedes I didn’t read any number for them, would you provide the sources for them?
Thanks.

Of course they don't talking about numbers, but we know how much they was jump last year. So it was 1sec+ and 2023 early December Aston said they don't think os possible the same jump. At 2024 January Aston says the same jump is very possible. So if they just change mind and say so ,then they achieved it . Also coming out news about "Alonso cooking again",and Crack can't wait "nail biting " what other teams did at winter. Just have to read between the lines...

Reading between the lines is fine but please state that you're doing so when you're declaring these numbers all over the forum otherwise it can be misleading for people that may be less familiar

If you're assuming based on Fallows interview that AMR have replicated their 2022->2023 development then why stop at 1s? Their real improvement from '22 to '23 was over 2s/lap.. Right because that would be ridiculous and exposes how silly this exercise is

You say "all sources say 0.6-0.7 sec" and when asked for the source you deflect. Which sources say that?

All we had ahead of 2023 (other than Ashwin's inside info) was that "aston martin's numbers look good", mercedes had fired some employees relating to the wind tunnel operation, and that at least one team had realized halfway through the development that they were going in the wrong direction and started from scratch (which since became clear was McLaren) so that's the scale of info that leaks out at least publicly

[Cs98]

I wasn’t talking about Ferrari (BTW for them it’s reported 7 tenths and wouldn’t be bad at all), on Aston and Mercedes I didn’t read any number for them, would you provide the sources for them?
Thanks.

Of course they don't talking about numbers, but we know how much they was jump last year. So it was 1sec+ and 2023 early December Aston said they don't think os possible the same jump. At 2024 January Aston says the same jump is very possible. So if they just change mind and say so ,then they achieved it . Also coming out news about "Alonso cooking again",and Crack can't wait "nail biting " what other teams did at winter. Just have to read between the lines...

Reading between the lines is fine but please state that you're doing so when you're declaring these numbers all over the forum otherwise it can be misleading for people that may be less familiar

If you're assuming based on Fallows interview that AMR have replicated their 2022->2023 development then why stop at 1s? Their real improvement from '22 to '23 was over 2s/lap.. Right because that would be ridiculous and exposes how silly this exercise is

You say "all sources say 0.6-0.7 sec" and when asked for the source you deflect. Which sources say that?

All we had ahead of 2023 (other than Ashwin's inside info) was that "aston martin's numbers look good", mercedes had fired some employees relating to the wind tunnel operation, and that at least one team had realized halfway through the development that they were going in the wrong direction and started from scratch (which since became clear was McLaren) so that's the scale of info that leaks out at least publicly

Any comparison that starts from early 2022 will be flawed, hence why the Bahrain AMR 22 --> 23 comparison falls flat. Most teams had an overweight car that was porpoising in early 2022, AMR also had a crappy concept. Start of 2023 they were on target weight, had a working concept and weren't porpoising. 2024 will be a question of marginal aero gains, not "easy" targets like weight, porpoising, or copying a working car concept. A much better comparison is the end of 2022 compared to the end of 2023, and in that comparison times are quite even. Safe to say we should not be expecting massive gains from the end of 2023 to the start of 24. I'd be very surprised if pole is a second faster than 23 in 24. My bet, around 5 tenths.

[organic]

Of course amr looks bad in the end of '23 to end of '22 comparisons. They ran that trick wing at the end of '22 which was very efficient and in '23 they were massively hurt by TD018 (forced into many changes) and this also undermined their entire development trajectory causing their car to get slower over the course of '23. I think this comparison therefore falls at least equally as flat

Ignoring/underestimating the aero changes from '22 to '23 is just ridiculous: they upped the minimum throat height of the diffuser as well as the floor edge changes. These changes both plainly cost downforce. Team members that have spoken about it in the media plus Tombazis have all been in agreement from what I've seen and estimated that at about 0.5s. Some teams were probably losing more than that.

There's also the factor that most teams barely changed their chassis from '22 to '23 which they'll be able to completely redesign for '24 so there's likely 'free' laptime in optimization of layout in there. Also no rule changes and same tyres so everything is a known quantity meaning the engineers don't need to hedge bets and can be aggressive with the development