2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[pantherxxx]

Not particularly worrying about race pace, as long as degradation looks good, and one lap pace is good too. Medium tires, which are less soft than softs, need a decent amount of rubber on the track to work effectively. On Sunday the medium tires will work much better.

[AR3-GP]

Not particularly worrying about race pace, as long as degradation looks good, and one lap pace is good too.

It's always a worry if Max is not happy.

[pantherxxx]

Not particularly worrying about race pace, as long as degradation looks good, and one lap pace is good too.

It's always a worry if Max is not happy.

Well everyone on medium struggled for grip, track is not ready for medium yet. Mclarens were only that much faster because of the soft tires.

[AR3-GP]

Not particularly worrying about race pace, as long as degradation looks good, and one lap pace is good too.

It's always a worry if Max is not happy.

Well everyone on medium struggled for grip, track is not ready for medium yet. Mclarens were only that much faster because of the soft tires.

That's a good point (or copium ). It could have just been that. Something else I noticed is that Verstappen started his race sim much earlier than the others. He started at 16:37 local time. It was only after 5-6 laps before the others started. The track temperature dropped quite aggressively during the session so the others did most of their race sim in lower temperatures. Verstappen was also behind Leclerc from the 5th lap onwards so could have experienced a small amount of turbulence during the second half of the sim.

[venkyhere]

McLaren has nailed their cooling solution, while Redbull had to open up even more louvres towards the front of the engine cover on the side, compared to what the pics showed before the sessions began. Plus, there is no grip on the M (sliding and graining), but doing well on the S ; which points to running too stiff (I think). With this race pace, there is no way Max will even make the podium. I remember calling out how McLaren's superior mechanical grip and ability to run their suspension softer (forgot whether it was this thread or race thread) will be the ace up their sleeve, and FP2 showed the same ; I hope I am proven wrong on Sunday.

[venkyhere]

Not particularly worrying about race pace, as long as degradation looks good, and one lap pace is good too.

It's always a worry if Max is not happy.

Well everyone on medium struggled for grip, track is not ready for medium yet. Mclarens were only that much faster because of the soft tires.

Not really, note the two M laps by Norris in the race pace plot screenshot shared by AR3GP in the previous page. That looks mighty. Lots of overnight homework for RBR.

[euv2]

Gianpiero Lambiase, Head of Racing

“Arvid did a very solid job in the car in FP1, we had some new components on the car and he did a very good job of collecting the data we needed and keeping the car in one piece. Onto the afternoon, a track temperature of just under 50 degrees is making life very difficult for us, both on the PU and brake cooling and the tyres as well. The challenge we are working on at the moment, is really trying to find that combination of tyre inner and surface temperature. Certainly in FP2 we saw that the long runs are becoming more and more of a focus for us. I think over one lap both cars are able to put in quite a competitive lap time, as you saw in FP2, particularly with Max. So, it's the high fuel run pace where we are really having to focus all of our attention this evening. We feel we are not really in a happy place with our tyre degradation and thermal control of the tyre. We need to work to get that where we need and want it to be."

Yuki had decent race pace for once, 1:22:7-1:23:1 for his stint. Hopefully with Yuki's more representative data they learn what they need to do with the tyres. Max said balance was quite good, so they might not mess with the setup too much, think the deficit is mostly engine cooling(to MCL) and tyres.

[Sergej]

Unfortunately we hit a very hot Mexico, Sunday probably to be the hottest day.

[f1isgood]

From all I could see, it doesn't look good so far. Hmm.

It's not entirely surprising McLaren's pace. Without grip on the track everyone else moves away from them.

Did we not see something similar at say Jeddah this year?

[Valeo]

If Max says the balance is okay I hope they don't mess too much with the setup and let the track come to them. Try to safe a set of softs today and let it be the starting tyre for tomorrow and see where you get from there.

[f1isgood]

Russell looks much better on the mediums. The car is actually in a pretty shitty spot.

[Sergej]

If Max says the balance is okay I hope they don't mess too much with the setup and let the track come to them. Try to safe a set of softs today and let it be the starting tyre for tomorrow and see where you get from there.

I guess they will do H-S in FP3, then 4 soft sets for quali, and one new soft for the race

they will have to adjust the setup for the medium but I think they won't have the chance to try it again

[Zhouvinazzi]

It’s one Friday fp session with wing testing (apparently) and new floor/sidepod aero to get on top of. It should have been obvious that the McLaren is the fastest car and also easy to set up, and that Max is still massively compensating for the RB21’s deficiencies. Them having crazy long runs today shouldn’t surprise anyone. What I’m excited about seeing is what Max and the team come up with tonight and tomorrow during fp3 to integrate the updates and dial things in. This is still just the beginning of the weekend

[Badger]

Going to need a bit of a miracle this weekend to hold off those McLarens in the race. This track and the heat just plays right into their strengths on tyres and cooling. It’s why I mentioned this track as the most dangerous one weeks ago.

RB need to have a great Friday to Saturday turnaround, and then the cards need to fall perfectly in quali and lap 1. Max needs to lead and Lando needs to be shuffled down the pack, P4 or lower realistically.

[f1isgood]

Going to need a bit of a miracle this weekend to hold off those McLarens in the race. This track and the heat just plays right into their strengths on tyres and cooling. It’s why I mentioned this track as the most dangerous one weeks ago.

RB need to have a great Friday to Saturday turnaround, and then the cards need to fall perfectly in quali and lap 1. Max needs to lead and Lando needs to be shuffled down the pack, P4 or lower realistically.

I think even if Lando is P4 or lower McLaren have enough pace to catch Max. I think it's more likely that Lando qualifies top 3, Max leads into Turn 1 and all the WDC hopium ends by Lap 5.