2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[organic]

Hmmm...me not.
Fells like doing the same error again. They promoted Albon and Gasly in the same way. Both underdelivered.
And with throwing each of them out again, they did not improve the situation.

Whoever they put in...in my point of view needs a both sided commitment to stand together for two years. To give the driver time to develop and to avoid this vicious circle.

Perhaps a 2y commitment would help (although Checo did sort of have that commitment... and in fact got multiple seasons, thus breaking the cycle to a degree) but we also have to be realistic in that there is noone lined up that is considered as a future long-term potential. There's no Lando, Charles or Max 1.5 on the direct horizon. So I can very well imagine the team being hesitant. But, I do agree that whoever it is, make it a full year commitment instead of pulling the plug halfway. The treatment of Gasly, Albon and for that matter de Vries was brutal and unnecessary, and at least 2/3 got a quite decent run after they were dropped by RB still.

Yes, but following the discussion we had a page ago...I still think dropping Albon and de Vries was ok, there was no hope. And this is the danger now...putting again someone into the car with no hope.
For Gasly I am not sure. He had an attitude issue. Maybe there was no solution to this but the hammer.

For Checo:
I think he just got lucky. In 2020 he got off the hook, there was no chance for WCC and he had the covid races. No judgement. In 2021 he was already underdelivering, but after Abu no one wanted to throw him out. In 22 and 23 they still won the WCC no matter or his performance. The nail to the coffin is now the lost WCC.

Checo was at racing point in 2020

[Sergej]

Impressive

[f1isgood]

I still hope they can do something with the next year's car in tracks like Mexico and Vegas. Those were never as bad as this year even with 18/19. Monza is still so shocking to me.

[f1isgood]

Hmmm...me not.
Fells like doing the same error again. They promoted Albon and Gasly in the same way. Both underdelivered.
And with throwing each of them out again, they did not improve the situation.

Whoever they put in...in my point of view needs a both sided commitment to stand together for two years. To give the driver time to develop and to avoid this vicious circle.

Perhaps a 2y commitment would help (although Checo did sort of have that commitment... and in fact got multiple seasons, thus breaking the cycle to a degree) but we also have to be realistic in that there is noone lined up that is considered as a future long-term potential. There's no Lando, Charles or Max 1.5 on the direct horizon. So I can very well imagine the team being hesitant. But, I do agree that whoever it is, make it a full year commitment instead of pulling the plug halfway. The treatment of Gasly, Albon and for that matter de Vries was brutal and unnecessary, and at least 2/3 got a quite decent run after they were dropped by RB still.

Yes, but following the discussion we had a page ago...I still think dropping Albon and de Vries was ok, there was no hope. And this is the danger now...putting again someone into the car with no hope.
For Gasly I am not sure. He had an attitude issue. Maybe there was no solution to this but the hammer.

For Checo:
I think he just got lucky. In 2020 he got off the hook, there was no chance for WCC and he had the covid races. No judgement. In 2021 he was already underdelivering, but after Abu no one wanted to throw him out. In 22 and 23 they still won the WCC no matter or his performance. The nail to the coffin is now the lost WCC.

Adding to what Organic said, Perez earned his seat in 2021 after winning a race in 2020.

He was okay in 21 and even parts of 22. Mid 23 he seemed to get close to being finished and by 24 he was fully finished.

[basti313]

Absolutely, nice summary. I think in 2023 he was saved by the half decent races in the end showing an upward trajectory and the lack of alternatives.

[organic]

I still hope they can do something with the next year's car in tracks like Mexico and Vegas. Those were never as bad as this year even with 18/19. Monza is still so shocking to me.

I don't think they planned for this car to be so bad at kerb riding. We saw it play out in pre-season, on the radio early in the season, and also caused max some issues at Miami. In pre-season Max talked about the main rb19 issues not being much better - namely kerbs and bumps. But once we saw them having to push hard on the kerbs for laptime like at Miami he went off and took damage. Iirc at the time - maybe around imola or canada it was discussed that in the simulator with the same suspension, it did not have such bad kerbing.

Waché

In kerb riding we are clearly weak, but we were already last year. I think we didn’t make the improvement we expected in that aspect.

Marko

“Our basic problem is not track-specific. The correlation between the simulator and the track does not work,”

“On the simulator, we drive over the curbs without any problems, and here, the car jumps like a kangaroo. That is where we have to start.

At Vegas they did not have the correct bodywork. It's been confirmed that they made a mistake in bringing the Hungary spec engine cover rather than the cannons - I don't know if that mistake was made through the simulator or if it was a logistical issue actually physically getting the correct engine cover to the track. On top of that the lack of low downforce wing was the issue. And low speed weakness. But the car was almost as quick as Ferrari at Vegas - a Mercedes that only works well for a winter calendar is the only reason why the rb20 wasn't fighting for a win there. I don't think that should be a big mark against it. Considering lack of correct RW and wrong engine cover it was actually a pretty good performance (3rd fastest - close to 2nd fastest).

Monza weekend they were delving heavily into the car's fundamental aero instabilities and trying to find the root cause of the problem that derailed their upgrades. The fact that Verstappen Horner etc have all kept talking about Monza as key suggests they were experimenting and collecting data that weekend more than competing for position. Lack of low DF rear wing also hurts a lot there.

Marko has already confirmed they will make a low downforce wing for Vegas and Monza in 2025 btw.

Marko confirms when asked that the intention is for Red Bull to introduce such a special rear wing for 2025 and to accommodate Verstappen.

https://www.telegraaf.nl/sport/11300653 ... t-wel-high

Waché generally speaking says that they want more of an all-rounder as well.

Speaking on the goal for 2025, he explained it was important to have an all-rounder car for the team's success. He added:

"Clearly, to have a decent car in multiple types of track. I think on this type of track [like in Vegas], we are not nice. So improving the low-speed [corners] and straightline speed is one of our goals."

[AR3-GP]

It's always a compromise. They don't need to be good in Las Vegas and Monza, if the car actually worked on the higher downforce tracks. The problem is the car was rubbish on the high downforce tracks (Mexico, Hungary, Singapore) which meant that the results on the low downforce tracks became more important. It didn't matter in 2022 and 2023.

If low downforce wings are low hanging fruit compared to solving all of the other problems, then we will probably see the low downforce wings.

[venkyhere]

Bottas to RBR, calling it now. Watch this space.

I would take it. Bottas is quite good.

Might do well in one-lap pace & might do well in race pace in clean air, over Perez.
However, Bottas is the biggest 'chicken' when it comes to wheel to wheel combat. Attack and defence is poor.

[venkyhere]

The RB20 has a 'baked in' problem.
'Stiffer than others' suspension. Which in turn, is due to high sensitivity of the floor, to ride height. This is why the RB20 has the most aggressive anti-dive and anti-squat (comparing to others) in it's wishbone geometry.
What is the price paid ? less mechanical grip with harder compound tyres (because tyre carcass flex is also part of suspension behavior) , that gets exacerbated in slow corners (low help from aero grip) and in kerb riding (which, due to stiffness, disturbs the orientation of the floor so much, that the car becomes unstable aero-wise).
The team is clever enough to tweak things around and deal with S and M tyres (whichever out of C2 to C5 that Pirelli have chosen for a track) , but isn't able to compensate with such setup tricks and driving style adjustments, when it comes to H tyres (whichever out of C1 to C3 that Pirelli have chosen for a track). So Redbuil end up choosing the 'best compromised option' path by optimizing the car for S and M compounds, leaving the setup of the car sub-optimal with H compound, so that Q and one race stint are optimized.

This problem doesn't exist (or is feeble) for Ferrari and McLaren. However, their problems are with their floor geometry itself, because their floors are more 'yaw sensitive' and 'roll sensitive' than the Redbull (that's why they are poorer than Redbull in high speed corners and 'esses' that require back-to-back-to-back direction change oscillations, like Suzuka sector1 or the snake in COTA). Their suspension design (that decides mechanical grip) is the ace up their sleeve over Redbull.

This is how I read the strength and weaknesses of the RB20.

[AR3-GP]

Agreed. The problem with the harder compound tires is that the car runs too stiff.

[Paa]

This was pretty much observed/confirmed since the beginning of the season.

What I would like to understand is why Red Bull expected the RB20 to be better with kerbs than RB19?

This is what they expected/promised and they were surprised it was not the case, but I don't get why? This is expected with the design they chose.

[f1isgood]

I still hope they can do something with the next year's car in tracks like Mexico and Vegas. Those were never as bad as this year even with 18/19. Monza is still so shocking to me.

I don't think they planned for this car to be so bad at kerb riding. We saw it play out in pre-season, on the radio early in the season, and also caused max some issues at Miami. In pre-season Max talked about the main rb19 issues not being much better - namely kerbs and bumps. But once we saw them having to push hard on the kerbs for laptime like at Miami he went off and took damage. Iirc at the time - maybe around imola or canada it was discussed that in the simulator with the same suspension, it did not have such bad kerbing.

Waché

In kerb riding we are clearly weak, but we were already last year. I think we didn’t make the improvement we expected in that aspect.

Marko

“Our basic problem is not track-specific. The correlation between the simulator and the track does not work,”

“On the simulator, we drive over the curbs without any problems, and here, the car jumps like a kangaroo. That is where we have to start.

At Vegas they did not have the correct bodywork. It's been confirmed that they made a mistake in bringing the Hungary spec engine cover rather than the cannons - I don't know if that mistake was made through the simulator or if it was a logistical issue actually physically getting the correct engine cover to the track. On top of that the lack of low downforce wing was the issue. And low speed weakness. But the car was almost as quick as Ferrari at Vegas - a Mercedes that only works well for a winter calendar is the only reason why the rb20 wasn't fighting for a win there. I don't think that should be a big mark against it. Considering lack of correct RW and wrong engine cover it was actually a pretty good performance (3rd fastest - close to 2nd fastest).

Monza weekend they were delving heavily into the car's fundamental aero instabilities and trying to find the root cause of the problem that derailed their upgrades. The fact that Verstappen Horner etc have all kept talking about Monza as key suggests they were experimenting and collecting data that weekend more than competing for position. Lack of low DF rear wing also hurts a lot there.

Marko has already confirmed they will make a low downforce wing for Vegas and Monza in 2025 btw.

Marko confirms when asked that the intention is for Red Bull to introduce such a special rear wing for 2025 and to accommodate Verstappen.

https://www.telegraaf.nl/sport/11300653 ... t-wel-high

Waché generally speaking says that they want more of an all-rounder as well.

Speaking on the goal for 2025, he explained it was important to have an all-rounder car for the team's success. He added:

"Clearly, to have a decent car in multiple types of track. I think on this type of track [like in Vegas], we are not nice. So improving the low-speed [corners] and straightline speed is one of our goals."

Thanks plenty for putting all of this together. I dont know how to award points or upvote but Thanks again.

Simulation software needs a big change and I hope they get it fixed. In the end, I recall early races of the car clearly being better than Ferrari at slow speed traction zones but they seem to have lost that with time. Well at least I recall Bahrain.

[f1isgood]

This was pretty much observed/confirmed since the beginning of the season.

What I would like to understand is why Red Bull expected the RB20 to be better with kerbs than RB19?

This is what they expected/promised and they were surprised it was not the case, but I don't get why? This is expected with the design they chose.

Yes, this is also the bit that is more confusing. I also wonder what happeend to the innovation cooling they did last winter for this car moving forwards. Have we reaped the full benefits of it?

[AR3-GP]

This was pretty much observed/confirmed since the beginning of the season.

What I would like to understand is why Red Bull expected the RB20 to be better with kerbs than RB19?

This is what they expected/promised and they were surprised it was not the case, but I don't get why? This is expected with the design they chose.

Marko said that they didn't foresee the issues in their simulations. In the sim, the car didn't have problems in Monaco or Imola. That means that the design that they chose was based on simulations that were bad (i.e the models don't reproduce real world behaviour). It's easy to do bad simulations. It's hard to do good ones.

[Paa]

So they took the easy route.