2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Emag]

So status quo it is if I can read Marko's statement? Lando vs Max part 2?

Well not quite, because RedBull ended the 2024 season a step down on both McLaren and Ferrari. So if they're on pace to win races again, they actually would have improved substantially.

So, who do you expect to be McL's closest competitor. Red Bull or Ferrari or Mercedes.
I was hoping for a Lando vs Max part 2 but oh well...

Oh sorry, I have no idea. I don’t want to make predictions based on testing. I just meant that it wouldn’t be a reset to the “status quo” because RedBull actually fell behind towards the end of 2024.

[Cs98]

Best lap testing 2025 vs 2024
Vs quali 2024
Compared to quali 2024 you can definitely see there's a deployment difference on the main straight. Acceleration is also slightly slower all over the track which indicates carrying more fuel. Engine mode seems the same except for front straight deployment. Wind in quali was 1 m/s headwind, today there was a slight tailwind, so the difference is not wind related.

[Sergej]

I stand my point that there was a bit too much of enthusiasm two days ago. Car showed glimpses of speed but still seems very difficult to handle; plus, McLaren is clearly ahead. But I was prepared for a season as chasers, and still I am.

Bit of relief is that I fully expected a McLaren-Ferrari fight but it may be that it will be Max to play the chaser role against Lando. Let's see.

[venkyhere]

It was impossible for me to watch the sessions live (waste of entire day) , I watched in 2-3 bursts of 10-15mins by using the time slider in the live broadcast, over most sessions.
Takeaways :
- laptimes dont mean anything, too many variables at play
- body language of the "big four" cars from the onboards and external cameras :
a) all of them were sandbagging with engine modes and fuel loads.
b) McLaren looks most stable and 'neutral' without over/understeer and good rotation in slow speed
c) Mercedes looked stable in the hands of Russel (expected) and was understeering in some slow corners (1,4,8), despite the impression I got that of these big four teams, Merc were running the least sandbagging.
d) Ferrari was fast, but didn't give the impression it was 'stable'. Commentators were having verbal diarrhoea about how well Hamilton has adapted to the car - I didn't find that to be the case from his onboards, especially when compared to LeClerc. He still has to learn the car.
e) Redbull looked like the kid who managed to finish his homework at the last minute. Never really had a proper long run, they were all burst stints. Plus, didn't find them running the harder C1/C2 compounds much at all. In the final 15-20mins of last session, car looked like rotating well in the slow corners (1,4,8) thus solving a fundamental problem with the car since 2022. Other than that, didn't look particularly well settled, Max was sawing at the wheel and was fighting the car (even on the 1.29.xxx laps) , which is the exact opposite of how comfortably Norris was driving the McLaren.

[organic]

Oh dear

Pierre Waché:

"It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the Team expected," Waché said at the end of the third day of testing. "But it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car. The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track, but we tried to explore the potential of the car and tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups, and I think we more or less achieved that."

"I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development,

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/329905/r ... hrain.html

[Xyz22]

Oh dear

Pierre Waché:

"It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the Team expected," Waché said at the end of the third day of testing. "But it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car. The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track, but we tried to explore the potential of the car and tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups, and I think we more or less achieved that."

"I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development,

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/329905/r ... hrain.html

To me is quite clear that McL is ahead by a significant margin at the moment.

[Sergej]

Oh dear

Pierre Waché:

"It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the Team expected," Waché said at the end of the third day of testing. "But it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car. The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track, but we tried to explore the potential of the car and tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups, and I think we more or less achieved that."

"I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development,

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/329905/r ... hrain.html

I mean this is plenty expected (at least by me), you had to be quite delusional (or a Ferrari fan ) to hope being able to overcome McLaren during the winter. They are clearly ahead, but if Red Bull can manage to be consistently second, I'll take it as a a positive.

[f1isgood]

That is fine, as far as I am concerned. Maybe they thought they could fight from race 1 but it was always going to be a long shot given they never fixed their issues fully last year even though they fixed some bits and already had plenty to fix even if RB20 didn't turn out to be as it did.

If Max can fight for a podium every race weekend for the first few weekends and then hopefully fight for wins for at least half the season, that would still be good enough. But that's still being too optimistic. I have a feeling McLaren are much more ahead than they are showing and in fact them taking very risky choices has completely paid off while others didn't improve as much simply put.

[TNTHead]

Oh dear

Pierre Waché:

"It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the Team expected," Waché said at the end of the third day of testing. "But it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car. The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track, but we tried to explore the potential of the car and tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups, and I think we more or less achieved that."

"I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development,

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/329905/r ... hrain.html

To me this sounds still as correlation issues, which would make the development extremely difficult if they cannot fix that during the season.

[Paa]

I think this could be a make or break season for Waché as well.
He needs to show that he can stand on his own without Newey, but if he can't turn it around this year and maybe comes up with a dud in 2026, that could be career over for him.

[Vettel165]

Just wait for Q3 in australia and then we will know more. Now everything is just a speculation and not a fact. I have a good feeling.

[Paa]

BTW, what would constitute as success for 2025 for RedBull/Max? Is there a consensus on that?

1. WDC/WCC by few races to spare
2. Being able to fight for WDC but with 50/50 outcome (vs McLaren presumably?)
3. Clear 2nd with being able to pick up a few wins here and there and hope for the rest
4. Being in the mix of 4 big teams and able to fight for podiums consistently?

For me it is #2, but other people might have different expectations so that will make interpretation of events different, too.

[Juzh]

Car looks very unpredictable. Oversteer, understeer, lock ups, spins, max shaking his head... It'd take qatar 2024 SQ -> Q turnaround to be able to fight for a win in Melbourne. However you want to spin it these things werent happening nearly as much in any year from 2021-2024.
I believe mclaren is far and away the best car, then it could be close between other 3 teams behind them. Also the fact they looked unreal on harder tyre on race sim, these are echoes of last year.

[Xyz22]

Car looks very unpredictable. Oversteer, understeer, lock ups, spins, max shaking his head... It'd take qatar 2024 SQ -> Q turnaround to be able to fight for a win in Melbourne. However you want to spin it these things werent happening nearly as much in any year from 2021-2024.
I believe mclaren is far and away the best car, then it could be close between other 3 teams behind them. Also the fact they looked unreal on harder tyre on race sim, these are echoes of last year.

Also in Bahrain you don't have to be that good on kerbs and a very rigid setup shouldn't be a big issue.
Did RB improve in these areas? We still don't know.

[Sergej]

BTW, what would constitute as success for 2025 for RedBull/Max? Is there a consensus on that?

1. WDC/WCC by few races to spare
2. Being able to fight for WDC but with 50/50 outcome (vs McLaren presumably?)
3. Clear 2nd with being able to pick up a few wins here and there and hope for the rest
4. Being in the mix of 4 big teams and able to fight for podiums consistently?

For me it is #2, but other people might have different expectations so that will make interpretation of events different, too.

Personally, I've been thinking that this season will be a write off since late summer of last year, so anything between n2 and n3 would be a success for me.

As a Max fan, I enjoyed 4 fantastic years so I am ok with the idea of not being in title fight this year, anything more will be a bonus.