Zhouvinazzi wrote: ↑01 Aug 2025, 08:48
I’m excited to see what kind of car the team fields next year. People are so doom and gloom but I think there’s a good chance they’re still right in the mix. Obviously the PU is a big question, but it’s not certain that it’ll be a bust. Not sure where the general confidence in that is coming from besides really vague rumors from months ago.
That aside, I hate to say it but this season has become so boring. Posts are way down on this forum and on Reddit and it’s the least hyped I’ve ever seen an extremely close WDC fight. For me a big part of this is because it’s obvious that the papaya drivers are not consistently on top form and neither are on the level of Max or Charles, so it’s hard to get invested in their battle. That could be ok if they had any sort of visible rivalry, but they’re both so sedate and introverted it’s just like who cares. How are you guys doing with your interest levels?
To be honest, nothing is going to beat 2021 as a season.
That said,
The McLaren car in 2025 is so far ahead of everyone, that even if the drivers makes mistakes (whether in Q or R), it doesn't matter - the car is capable of winning every single race. The only reason they haven't had a 100% win record until now, is because their drivers have made 'bigger mistakes' than what the 'performance headroom' in the car allows. Any measurement of what is the race pace advantage McL39 has over the '2nd best' car (which keeps changing) after every race - is a big debate/major discussion in every team thread. However, I think it's all null and void, because no other team is 'managing the pace' as much as McLaren is. Despite that, we see them having 0.5s/lap advantage in tracks that 'don't really suit the car' and having 1+s/lap advantage in tracks that suit the car. Us non insiders can have no idea what the actual number is - however, I guess it's much more than what the 'stats' say, because in every race the McLaren is leading at some point and is 'managing' the tyres and risk mitigating their race, rather than pushing for a position.
Hence, in terms of an engineering perspective, this season is very interesting for me to see how much the possibilities in this regulation set exist, over the last set, despite having heavier cars and bigger wheels (more unsprung mass, more rotational inertia) and despite the engines remaining unchanged. Laptime records of W11 (the monster from the last regulation set) are being broken almost every 2nd/3rd race.
w.r.t Redbull,
they have erred somewhere in the middle of 2023, whilst designing the RB20 (and have continued the same whilst preparing RB21) , where in the pursuit of performance, they went beyond the point of diminishing returns, and went too far down the path of adding negative performance. In software parlance, they added new/serious bugs whilst administering 'fixes' for minor bugs/deficits. Just because they have a driver like Verstappen, they have the luxury of slapping on extreme setups that take away a lot of driveability, chasing performance that can be in the ballpark of the McLarens - allowing a man-machine combo that wins the odd race here and there ; similar to how Messi plays a tournament with a minor injury and still manages to score and win matches here and there. If we discount this, and look at the 'big picture' , the RB21, in a normalised setup, is a midfield car, not a podium car. That's the hard truth. What's more worrying for the team, is that whenever they bring 'updates' it either adds performance and destroys 'balance' or it 'helps the balance' while removing performance - it's like being restricted to the circle x^2+y^2=1 (where x=performance, y=balance), while a team like McLaren has x^2+y^2=1.5. That's the reason why we are seeing so many floor revisions with Redbull, while Mclaren have had just 1 (if my memory serves me right).
Hence, in terms of a team perspective, I have lost interest with Redbull, however, not lost interest with the driver. It always interests me to see 'how far can he go' when Verstappen starts a quali or a race.
