2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Max says some people around them turned up the engines (likely referring to Mercedes).

Sams Collins says the Honda engineers did not let Honda teams turn up the engines in FP2.

[AR3-GP]

an ugly result on it's face...

[organic]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

[f1isgood]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

Yeah, as long as RB have 3 to 4 tenths in race trim, Max will just fly past regardless of where he qualifies and will deliver a win.

[Cassius]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

Unfortunately with a tighter field it does. Last year Merc often had the 2nd best race pace but were often stuck behind slower cars in drs trains in the first part of the race, or lost too much time overtaking, to be of any threat to top 2 or 3.

[organic]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

Unfortunately with a tighter field it does. Last year Merc often had the 2nd best race pace but were often stuck behind slower cars in drs trains in the first part of the race, or lost too much time overtaking, to be of any threat to top 2 or 3.

I don't remember this at all. Merc were very rarely better than 3rd fastest

[Cassius]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

Unfortunately with a tighter field it does. Last year Merc often had the 2nd best race pace but were often stuck behind slower cars in drs trains in the first part of the race, or lost too much time overtaking, to be of any threat to top 2 or 3.

I don't remember this at all. Merc were very rarely better than 3rd fastest

Maybe 2nd not that often indeed. My point remains. Without 1-lap race it will be not be easy to slice through the field with a better race pace in a field that has become very tight.

[stonehenge]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

I get your general point but that’s a little ridiculous. Of course qualifying pace matters. If it didn’t matter no one would try to optimize quali pace.

If Red Bull can still qualify P2-P3 consistently then it’ll be fine, but if the field is very tight this year in qualifying *and* Red Bull doesn’t have as much of an advantage in race pace as last year (which it wouldn’t if 3-4 tenths is true), then qualifying on the third row will absolutely impact their chances of winning.

[AR3-GP]

Don't care about quali pace. Doesn't matter

Unfortunately with a tighter field it does. Last year Merc often had the 2nd best race pace but were often stuck behind slower cars in drs trains in the first part of the race, or lost too much time overtaking, to be of any threat to top 2 or 3.

Mercedes had an ineffective DRS system.

[Cassius]

Engine a bit down vs last year's fastest lap in fp2. But they seem slower in the medium speed corners.


Source: f1-tempo

[AR3-GP]

The Perez race sim was fairly quick too. I noticed that they took very different approaches to the stint. Perez first lap was 1 second faster than Verstappen's.

[organic]

The Perez race sim was fairly quick too. I noticed that they took very different approaches to the stint. Perez first lap was 1 second faster than Verstappen's.

Yes they had Max start gentle vs Perez aggressive to see the difference. I think Max went too gentle judging by the similarity in laptime

[Cassius]

Max was faster in his race sim than all of his 3 testing sims which were said to be on 85kg of fuel. So it looked more like a full tank with a detuned engine during testing and hotter weather.

[AR3-GP]

Max was faster in his race sim than all of his 3 testing sims which were said to be on 85kg of fuel. So it looked more like a full tank with a detuned engine during testing and hotter weather.

It could be something, it could be nothing. AMUS/Marko don’t seem to think there’s much gap at all.

[mendis]

Max was faster in his race sim than all of his 3 testing sims which were said to be on 85kg of fuel. So it looked more like a full tank with a detuned engine during testing and hotter weather.

His FP2 race sim appeared to be driving to a delta of mid 1m36s. I had my reasons to believe his 3 stints on the final day of testing, was on full race fuel load. He was driving to a delta there too, but on a highly rubbered track that had 3 days of running. Yet, it was a tad bit slower than FP2 race sim.