2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[f1isgood]

I'm still a bit scared of McLaren magic tyre wear.

Yeah hope we don't get a reality check

[basti313]

My bet is, that RedBull first had to go for stiffer suspension due to the bottoming and now simply lowered the car based on the plank wear figure from the sprint. McLaren did not have this data, so they are simply not 100% efficient on the aero side. So I would expect a leveled field.
Interestingly the inside was still strong at the start, being the "dirty" side..still I think Max can just go away like at the sprint and behind it will be interesting between Ferraris and McLarens.

[Valeo]

I'm still a bit scared of McLaren magic tyre wear.

Yeah hope we don't get a reality check

Seems like McLaren got the ride height wrong so there is hope.

[Henk_v]

My bet is, that RedBull first had to go for stiffer suspension due to the bottoming and now simply lowered the car based on the plank wear figure from the sprint. McLaren did not have this data, so they are simply not 100% efficient on the aero side. So I would expect a leveled field.
Interestingly the inside was still strong at the start, being the "dirty" side..still I think Max can just go away like at the sprint and behind it will be interesting between Ferraris and McLarens.

Imagine George doing his trademark divebomb on Leclerc and Norris in T1 and taking them out. I wouldn't know if that would be good or bad. Norris out, but Piastri P3.

Apart from hypotheticals, Hamilton, Russel ánd Leclerc are very hard guys to pass and will have been well prepared to keep Oscar behind with battery deployment games.

[basti313]

My bet is, that RedBull first had to go for stiffer suspension due to the bottoming and now simply lowered the car based on the plank wear figure from the sprint. McLaren did not have this data, so they are simply not 100% efficient on the aero side. So I would expect a leveled field.
Interestingly the inside was still strong at the start, being the "dirty" side..still I think Max can just go away like at the sprint and behind it will be interesting between Ferraris and McLarens.

Imagine George doing his trademark divebomb on Leclerc and Norris in T1 and taking them out. I wouldn't know if that would be good or bad. Norris out, but Piastri P3.

Apart from hypotheticals, Hamilton, Russel ánd Leclerc are very hard guys to pass and will have been well prepared to keep Oscar behind with battery deployment games.

Yes. Basically every car on the inside will have the car behind alongside when entering T1 if everything runs as normal. The big question is who plays games on the inside. I do not think Norris will try to dive again. But this may cause even more mayhem, as Lec will be on the outside and Rus diving from behind.
I bet there is some touching although unlucky Hulk is not in the game.

[Sergej]

My bet is, that RedBull first had to go for stiffer suspension due to the bottoming and now simply lowered the car based on the plank wear figure from the sprint. McLaren did not have this data, so they are simply not 100% efficient on the aero side. So I would expect a leveled field.
Interestingly the inside was still strong at the start, being the "dirty" side..still I think Max can just go away like at the sprint and behind it will be interesting between Ferraris and McLarens.

There's an article on AMuS saying that with no data from the sprint McLaren had to go conservative regarding ride height, so they may have left some performance on the table. We'll see.

[Badger]

My bet is, that RedBull first had to go for stiffer suspension due to the bottoming and now simply lowered the car based on the plank wear figure from the sprint. McLaren did not have this data, so they are simply not 100% efficient on the aero side. So I would expect a leveled field.
Interestingly the inside was still strong at the start, being the "dirty" side..still I think Max can just go away like at the sprint and behind it will be interesting between Ferraris and McLarens.

There's an article on AMuS saying that with no data from the sprint McLaren had to go conservative regarding ride height, so they may have left some performance on the table. We'll see.

They will still be quick. Lando hardly nailed his laps in quali. If you add his best sectors he would have done a 32.4, which is faster than pole.

[Sergej]

A scruffy lap by Lando, what a surprise also worth considering that pole time would have probably been lower had Max done another lap.

[Emag]

They will still be quick. Lando hardly nailed his laps in quali. If you add his best sectors he would have done a 32.4, which is faster than pole.

He could have gone a couple of tenths quicker for sure. Almost the entire gap was made in sector 1 actually. Lando managed to set a S1 equal to that of Max once in the session, but struggled to match that again. And then S2 and S3 it was much closer.



And yeah, telemetry wise, comparing their best laps in Q3, Max made 90% of the gap in S1 :

[search]

looks mainly due to different tire management to me. Norris often saves tires at the start of the lap to be faster in the end, so just combining the best sectors results in a misleading number,

[Vettel165]

A scruffy lap by Lando, what a surprise also worth considering that pole time would have probably been lower had Max done another lap.

Indeed Max would be probably about 0.4s ahead of the field if he had the second lap.

[Emag]

looks mainly due to different tire management to me. Norris often saves tires at the start of the lap to be faster in the end, so just combining the best sectors results in a misleading number,

I think with how hot it was yesterday it's mostly tire temps and getting "lucky" with the bumps and with the wind. Don't think Lando could pump out that S1 performance consistently, so his "best sectors" are definitely a bit misleading. Still think he could have gone 1or 2 tenths quicker though, perhaps not enough to beat Max, but should have been comfortably ahead of Leclerc.

In general, RedBull are less draggy than McLaren but I think for this particular race it mostly has to do with differing setups. McLaren seem to have more downforce. I think with the amount of downforce these cars generate at +200 kmh, they're not really downforce limited on the esses of S1 though. Especially the top cars, so I believe McLaren have too much downforce actually and they're giving up time in S1 but their car should be easier to drive in general, particularly in S3. Probably things would have been different had they not double DNF-ed in the Sprint. Without having any extra data like the rest of the teams, they went for the "safe route".

[FNTC]

On the youtubevideo from yelistener comparing the laps from max and lando, lando's head was shaking around alot more than max's, so the mclaren looked stiffer or something

[TwanV]

Yeah it was pretty obvious too from behavior in turn 6 in qualy, particularly for PIA. the McLaren is not very happy over the bumps here, will be interesting to see if it will be better on high fuel loads.

[basti313]

looks mainly due to different tire management to me. Norris often saves tires at the start of the lap to be faster in the end, so just combining the best sectors results in a misleading number,

No, you simply do not give away 1.5 tenths in turn 1 and then go full pace on the subsequent corners to "manage tires". That was just a bad T1. Pia also missed T1 nearly every lap. That was just difficult to drive with the wind changing, very exposed corner. Seemed like the McLaren drivers had the most issues, the car can be planted as much as it can, but wind will just change the max cornering speed no matter what the car does.

Yeah it was pretty obvious too from behavior in turn 6 in qualy, particularly for PIA. the McLaren is not very happy over the bumps here, will be interesting to see if it will be better on high fuel loads.

In the race every car will be much easier to drive on the 1 stop. So I think McLaren will be close again or even better. I just saw driving issues, no real car issues. Head shaking is not a method to asses the pace...