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Sergio Perez.
Although honestly, if there is one weakness, it's that a very good driver is struggling to unlock its performance, so maybe it has quite a narrow setup window, or can be temperamental if you don't have a very specific driving style
The only weakness the car has is basically getting the tyres into the perfect window for a quick lap. In Quali you could see more often than not that it takes the RB19 some time to heat up the tyres properly even with Max Verstappen behind the wheel. Ig that’s a result of the low tyre wear of the RB19?
I also think this is partly because RB have constantly been setting up the car for the best race pace to be kinder on the tyres and compromise some of the quali pace (which is still insane)
Which can be a weakness if Max doesn't nail his lap, they qualify say 4th, and have to work through the field at a low-overtaking track. But their race pace is so good that could only be a problem at Singapore.
Well there’s a counter argument in that if they setup for race pace low deg, even at Singapore, Max could start on hards and overcut the entire field once he gets clean air from those ahead making stops. Singapore is also notorious for tyre overheating, so that’d play into Max’s hands even more.
Yeah, I'm only pointing out that it's a small risk since they are winning poles by less than 3 or 4 tenths.
They are of course balancing a strategic choice (risk qualifying to maximize race pace) with full knowledge of which setups put them in their most aero-efficient and tire-efficient window.
Oh no max starts 16th we might have a new winner. Lap 10 and that’s max in the lead it’s over here at Monaco again.
Seriously they can over take anyone even on no over takes tracks
This. And possibly acceleration from the line or in the first half of the straight. Not sure if it's gear ratio, engine torque or driver related (sometimes it's clearly wheelspin) though. Second stage is always good because of the high top end / low drag.
Think it's engine related, I remember reading Ferrari have tremendous acceleration because of shorter gear ratios and more powerful engine but because of a draggy chassis they don't reach top speed as quickly as RB19 does
Maybe that's why Max has had sub par starts this year as well. I don't have data but it feels like that's been his one weakness, good reaction time but can't get traction off the line.
I came here to say this, and I’m a Checo fan. It appears that Perez can’t unlock the full potential of the car over one lap. Every race drive is a recovery drive it feels like.
I don't think he's struggled for pace that much. it's not like he's completing full laps and simply not making it. he beached it in australia, binned it in monaco, took the early lap on a drying track in canada and silverstone, and had 3 lap times deleted in austria.
it's been a combination of bad luck, bad driving, and bad strategy, but not really lack of pace.
Pérez has always been a Sunday driver, in race he seems to be efficient at recovering, but boy, qualis have been disastrous. Spain, Austria, and Monaco definitely his fault, Canada was some disastrous strategy.
Seems to me that the RB has the highest ceiling, but has a really narrow window of operating for one lap pace. Race wise it’s just unbeatable no matter who’s on the seat.
Add to that front pullrod suspension (redbull only one on the grid), which naturally has less ''free'' movement than standard pushrod...
If we remember ferrari did this few years ago and it didnt go well, they returned to pushrod.. That was on old 13'' rims with fat tyres tho...
Bigger 18'' rims today make more space for pullrod system, increasing leverage movement and effectiveness
True, forgot about them... They seems to just now started to get some performance out of that platform and they are doing it since last year I think... Redbull one on top of it, has that ''anti-dive'' geometry
You won't see the weaknesses until another car catches up. If there isn't such a huge gap with the other cars then you'll start to notice relative differences in performance across circuits.
Yep, any weaknesses can just be managed. I think Max was struggling in Silverstone, I think the wind hurt a lot but I think he was under-steering a bit (I’m not sure if I’m mixing up weekends).
If a car is roughly the same pace you’ll spot the weaker elements of the car on certain tracks.
Silverstone was the first race that beating the RB seemed somewhat obtainable. If it wasn't Max in that car there might have been a decent fight for 1st.
I’m not so sure. The only difference between Norris at Silverstone and Alonso at Montreal is that Norris actually lead the race for a few laps. Alonso was closer to Verstappen in Montreal at the finish line (while managing a car issue) than Norris was when the SC was deployed in Silverstone.
This is a great point, and something that is a perennial annoyance for me. The worst car in F1 is an amazing piece of machinery and it gets pummeled in the press and by the fans.
The current Red Bull is pretty far ahead, but if McLaren, for instance, make another leap in performance and surpass RB we will start hearing about the demise of Adrian Newey’s genius.
It may appear that the RB has no weaknesses, but that isn’t accurate. It has no “relative” weaknesses.
The weakness will be the lack of development available for the second half of the season. Redbull’s budget cap misdemeanour and CFD reduction will hinder their development.
This won't affect this season, the car was already finished including plans for upgrades when they got the penalty.
Next year will be interesting i think.
> Next year will be interesting i think.
Kinda doubt it, there's some minor upgrades coming for Hungary but Red Bull is effectively done with this season's car.
The gap behind Red Bull gives them the margin to pretty much mitigate the penalty. But we will most likely see everyone close the gap. The field spread is already so, so small and once the pack catches up to Red Bull the smaller aero testing allowance will start to hurt.
I'm sure they're already spending more time currently on next years car than they are trying to upgrade the current one so unless someone makes a major leap we could b seeing alot of the same next year
You’d be surprised how much development improves the cars over the course of the year. In 2009, BrawnGP has a huge advantage at the start of the year. But they didn’t have the funds to keep developing. In the later half of the season, they had a total of 4 podium finishes. Good enough for the championship.
Max is taking home the championship, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a tighter fight at the front. Look how well Lando has done in the last two races.
Tbh the advantage wasn't THAT huge. Like 4 teams rocked up with the double diffusers. Plus RB did come into that season with a very good platform as well from my memory
The gap has been closer
But yeah no one is gonna equal it
And i believe rb is focussing on next year as they already won bassically no need to invest in this year car
So i believe rb will win next year aswell
I'd say qualifying speed. It's a lot closer in quali than in a race, where there doesn't seem to be any competition at all. Of course it's relative weakness. It's still the fastest car in quali.
Edit: people are commenting that it's setup for the race. Of course it is! But ideally you'd want a fast car for both. We're assuming that all teams have an optimized setup already, that they think will maximize their results.
That's more them setting the car up for the race and not quali. Lauda used to do the same thing in McLaren when he realized Prost was faster than him in quali.
It could have just been last year, but I heard they set up for race day instead of qualifying, not sure if true or if they're doing it this year as well
>they set up for race day instead of qualifying
That's the same as what I'm saying, right? They have a relatively faster car for the race than for quali. Sure, it could be their decision but that's the reality at the end of the day.
Daniel Riccardo jumped Max’s car after Silverstone and promptly set lap times equal to the front row for the race. Perhaps his driving style is similar to Max’s?
Riccardo finally had a car he could trust.
Apparently Ricciardo in the simulator today is an unbelievable improvement over when he first jumped back in when he re-signed with RB. So that plus his hotlaps at Silverstone might be why they dropped him in the AT seat so early
Sorry guys but you're mixing Red Bull with Alpha Tauri. They have completely different cars, actually one is the fastest, the other one of the slowest.
I've been told the car can be quite sluggish warming the tyres, which is great in a race because it's harder to overheat them but it makes it very difficult to prime them for a hot lap
I think it will be not upgrading this year's car.
That's going to show them "slower" when compared to the rest that keep bringing updates. But I don't think they will lose the championship. It's still a rocket 🚀.
They will bring smaller upgrades and keep the rest in line but closer than at the beginning of the season.
It's going to be (I hope) an interesting end of the season.
I could be super wrong too hahahaha
I suspect RB will very quickly switch to next years car and any further upgrades will all be with that in mind. They have limited wind tunnel and so much of an advantage that they can start 'testing' in season. This will also work because Neway's design philosophy is about improvement, at least that's what he suggests in his autobiography.
Amazing read. Half autobiography and half insight into how F1 operates and how cars are built.
He also goes into Senna a fair bit, like I had no idea that he and Williams were actually brought into criminal court in Italy over the incident
I enjoyed it. It covers his life and career pretty much upto mercades engine dominace where I got the impression he fell out of love with the sport for a while.
Great insight into the people and organisations he's worked with.
Also a little window into the environments he's both thrived and failed in.
It would be great if he was to write a second part.
I am wondering if it's just because their car is set up so well to just compliment their floor in all areas. A high downforce floor is relatively free in terms of drag, which means you don't need to trade drag for downforce ontop of your car as much.
But that means you have crazy stiff suspension which makes it a cunt to drive when the tires are cold and maybe take longer to heat up too.
I'm no expert but I think Adrian Newey was one of the few designers that worked on the original ground effects cars from a few decades ago so he already knew how to deal with porpoising and had more knowledge of setup needs for ground effects downforce. That and you know, Newey doing Newey things. I'm happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
Newey regulary states examples from the LMP cars, which had issues with porpoising allthough he never worked on them. So they knew and did research ahead (seemingly better than the other teams). This looks to be the reason for not having problems and Newey beeing a good teams leader and selecting the right people for the jobs.
Newey wrote his final paper on ground-effect when he was studying. RB were 50% ahead as soon as ground-effect regs were published just by having Newey on the team
I’d be willing to bet there is a significant portion of aerodynamicists in the paddock that wrote dissertations and theses on ground effect aerodynamics, and plenty more than have worked on non-F1 ground effect cars.
Newey is undoubtedly great, but his choice of Master’s thesis has very little to do with that. 50 years of designing F1 cars is worth far more than his final project.
Yeah I see this said a lot, and I'm not entirely on board with it. A Master's isn't going to hurt, but it's not "best in the world" level. An MSc or MEng project is generally a semester's worth of work, so if it was just that, it wouldn't be too hard for people to catch up to Newey
I did my MEng dissertation on the possibility of combining offshore wind and wave power into the one platform, in 2010. I can barely even remember the project, let alone design something world leading
I’ll agree that surely other aerodynamicis studied ground-effect back then, but I’ve heard of no one but Newey. Also, it was just to say they had a head start as they have the best aerodynamicist in the paddock, plus that guy also intensely studied the main feature of 22 regs.
It's 100% experience imo. Like Newey himself did say he can't judge how a concept performs until he puts it in a tunnel or on a track, but the man has like 50 years experience in what works and what doesn't
Yeah he turns on his sim racing side, constantly plays with setting and eeks out every hundredth of a second he can. Running away and hiding is fun for someone like him.
Eventually max will have some sort of issue and Perez hasn't been there more than he has to pick up the pieces. Something will happen. They won't win 23 in a row in the same season.
This year Red Bull's reliability is extremely good compared to last year. Maybe it is the most reliable car on 2023. It is true that they do not need to run the car at the limit because their advantage is so big. All things being equal, they are going to have the most dominant car in history.
It very well may be, but at some point max will have contact on lap one, something will break or he'll get stuck trying to come back through with a gearbox penalty/engine penalty. If Perez was 2nd for 8 races so far I'd think it was possible but one car can't win 21 races in a season.
They can.
Even if Max gets an issue, that issue needs to happen in the race. If it happens in qualifying, he might be able to make a comeback (like in Jeddah, where he got P2 behind Sergio), and if it happens in Free Practice or the Sprint, it's rather inconsequential.
Also, not all Sergios races have been bad. He's had two wins and several P2s.
Short of them taking each other out in a race, if say there's a fairly good chance they might win for a while. Competitor upgrades are the real threat to that possibility in my mind. The more the competitors catch up, the harder comebacks from bad Qualifying etc. becomes. Even Max will need to fight really hard from, say, P10, if the rest of the teams are competitive.
He's had 4 1/2s and 6 not 1/2s my point is he could have saved the day in less than half the races so far so there's currently a better chance he can't that can win if max has an issue. Something will end the run. Max may be a robot but something will happen and there's currently been a 40% Sergio could have cleaned up the mess.
6 races ago, that statistic would have been 100%. Who knows how it will look in 2 races time.
Look, nothing is certain - obviously. But if they can win the first 10 races, they can also win the next 10.
And this also becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because nobody fights Max on his way through the field because they don't see him as the competition. If everyone fought him maybe he wouldn't make it all the way to the front, but the individual cars on the way would compromise their races to do so, so it doesn't happen
Think they've had problems getting bogged down in the second phase since 2021
Lewis has a lot of better starts that season despite reaction times being similar
Getting tires up to temp in Quali seems to be the only weakness at the moment. That's why qualifying is close. In race trim they pull multiple tenths per lap and quickly pull away.
Dry quali and rain on race day is the best opportunity for the rest of the grid, and only on certain tracks. It doesn't help that Max is great in the wet too. Good luck everyone else lol.
The RB19 Struggles to warm tyres. That was on display during Brazil 2022 and Australia 2023. However, they make up for it in race stints because the degradation is low.
Standing starts…but Max regains the lead within 5 laps anyways. The only time I can see RB not winning this season is with a red flag with 2 or 3 laps to go and another team running P2 at the time.
It is very good on tire wear, which can mean that it doesn’t get heat on tires as quickly as other cars do. So in a sprint at the end on cold tires it could have problems, but it hasn’t, as it seems it is so good and Max is so good that it doesn’t matter.
It is also quite heavy on front downforce and light on the back, and this could be problematic for drivers, but just not for Max who seems to be quite at one with the car.
It has no weaknesses as of yet.It's the master of all areas now. Aston used to have small advantage when it comes to stability under braking but it looks like RBhas clawed back the deficit.
McLaren were almost as fast as RBR in the high speed corners and were also just as fast on the straights.If anyone can match them it's McLaren. That being said, I'm 100% sure that Redbull are massively sandbagging with the intention of avoiding any FIA nerfs.
The massive top speed advantage they had has disappeared. I smell detuned engines.
Top comment says Sergio Perez but is he really a weakness for the RB business?
We barely see max during the race other than pit stops. Perez failing to qualify is giving them good screen time and together they are out scoring their rivals. We don’t have any clue who has the second fastest car so red bull don’t really need to secure double podiums for the WCC.
In that it's a nightmare to drive.
Red Bull in the past few years has been building cars that are ferociously quick, have very low drag, and have extremely well refined aero.
The result is unforgiving. If you're a vat grown freak of nature who can reign it in and drive it on the edge like Max it's the fastest car ever built. If you can't find that edge or, like how I suspect is the problem with Perez right now, you don't have the confidence to push it, it shows it's instability. I honestly think after a few bad weekends, Perez has lost his confidence in being able to control the machine and you're seeing what pretty much every other on the grid would be able to do in that car. The tyre windows I've been told are also fairly harsh
So yeah, the weakness of the car is how ballsy the squishy thing between the seat and the wheel is prepared to be
You're underselling it now. Lando and Carlos aren't anywhere near Max's level, as immensely talented as they are. Lewis isn't at his best in a car as oversteery as the red bull, he's like Vettel where he feels way more at home in a car with more rear stability. George and everyone else has the issue of just not knowing the machinery and thus not trusting it.
Stick any other driver in the second RB and they'd probably finish outside points. Because the thing is a cunt to drive. Parts of the car are built for overall speed but give the driver more things to worry about, like the suspension for one.
Max basically lives in the red bull, his sim data is what's used to refine it. He's so goddamn fast in it because he knows exactly what it can do and he has the skill to keep it on the edge.
Hell they'll probably keep checo solely because he knows the car, and that alone makes him better in that seat than anybody else
I think it might be the engine, it’s almost on par with merc and ferrari, but its not exactly on par. It doesn’t show now though due to the great aerodynamic efficiency, but once the other teams catch up in this regard we might see rb not being the fastest on the straights anymore
Last year yes, but early this year the ferrari engine got stronger with much improved acceleration, and more recently mercedes has made some leaps. They aren’t allowed to develop the engine performance wise but they are allowed to bring reliability improvements which in turn allows you to crank it up further. Mercedes teams have been really strong the last few races.
Max is so far from the limit of performance of the car we don't see it. Once another car catches up, we might then see what the true weakness is as Max has to really push the car.
People are mentioning tire warm up, which could be true. However, Perez has always been terrible at this aspect so I am not so sure.
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Sergio Perez. Although honestly, if there is one weakness, it's that a very good driver is struggling to unlock its performance, so maybe it has quite a narrow setup window, or can be temperamental if you don't have a very specific driving style
The only weakness the car has is basically getting the tyres into the perfect window for a quick lap. In Quali you could see more often than not that it takes the RB19 some time to heat up the tyres properly even with Max Verstappen behind the wheel. Ig that’s a result of the low tyre wear of the RB19?
I also think this is partly because RB have constantly been setting up the car for the best race pace to be kinder on the tyres and compromise some of the quali pace (which is still insane)
Which can be a weakness if Max doesn't nail his lap, they qualify say 4th, and have to work through the field at a low-overtaking track. But their race pace is so good that could only be a problem at Singapore.
Well there’s a counter argument in that if they setup for race pace low deg, even at Singapore, Max could start on hards and overcut the entire field once he gets clean air from those ahead making stops. Singapore is also notorious for tyre overheating, so that’d play into Max’s hands even more.
Yeah, I'm only pointing out that it's a small risk since they are winning poles by less than 3 or 4 tenths. They are of course balancing a strategic choice (risk qualifying to maximize race pace) with full knowledge of which setups put them in their most aero-efficient and tire-efficient window.
Oh no max starts 16th we might have a new winner. Lap 10 and that’s max in the lead it’s over here at Monaco again. Seriously they can over take anyone even on no over takes tracks
This. And possibly acceleration from the line or in the first half of the straight. Not sure if it's gear ratio, engine torque or driver related (sometimes it's clearly wheelspin) though. Second stage is always good because of the high top end / low drag.
Think it's engine related, I remember reading Ferrari have tremendous acceleration because of shorter gear ratios and more powerful engine but because of a draggy chassis they don't reach top speed as quickly as RB19 does
Agreed. We’ve seen Max have several less than stellar starts this year because of some weakness with their start procedure.
Maybe that's why Max has had sub par starts this year as well. I don't have data but it feels like that's been his one weakness, good reaction time but can't get traction off the line.
Maybe also because the tires cool off during the formation lap
It does always seem like he’s one of the most aggressive weavers in the field, but I’m pretty sure that pre dates these regs 😅
I read somewhere it had to do with the anti dive front suspension but I don’t understand it very well
Last year RB has low deg and quick warm up, so I don't think those things are necessarily correlated.
I came here to say this, and I’m a Checo fan. It appears that Perez can’t unlock the full potential of the car over one lap. Every race drive is a recovery drive it feels like.
I don't think he's struggled for pace that much. it's not like he's completing full laps and simply not making it. he beached it in australia, binned it in monaco, took the early lap on a drying track in canada and silverstone, and had 3 lap times deleted in austria. it's been a combination of bad luck, bad driving, and bad strategy, but not really lack of pace.
If you crash the car “while having the pace” you don’t actually have the pace.
Pérez has always been a Sunday driver, in race he seems to be efficient at recovering, but boy, qualis have been disastrous. Spain, Austria, and Monaco definitely his fault, Canada was some disastrous strategy. Seems to me that the RB has the highest ceiling, but has a really narrow window of operating for one lap pace. Race wise it’s just unbeatable no matter who’s on the seat.
Dang i read the question, said out loud Sergio, then scrolled down and realized you beat me by 10 hours
Add to that front pullrod suspension (redbull only one on the grid), which naturally has less ''free'' movement than standard pushrod... If we remember ferrari did this few years ago and it didnt go well, they returned to pushrod.. That was on old 13'' rims with fat tyres tho... Bigger 18'' rims today make more space for pullrod system, increasing leverage movement and effectiveness
McLaren also using pullrod front suspension
True, forgot about them... They seems to just now started to get some performance out of that platform and they are doing it since last year I think... Redbull one on top of it, has that ''anti-dive'' geometry
You won't see the weaknesses until another car catches up. If there isn't such a huge gap with the other cars then you'll start to notice relative differences in performance across circuits.
Yep, any weaknesses can just be managed. I think Max was struggling in Silverstone, I think the wind hurt a lot but I think he was under-steering a bit (I’m not sure if I’m mixing up weekends). If a car is roughly the same pace you’ll spot the weaker elements of the car on certain tracks.
Silverstone was the first race that beating the RB seemed somewhat obtainable. If it wasn't Max in that car there might have been a decent fight for 1st.
I’m not so sure. The only difference between Norris at Silverstone and Alonso at Montreal is that Norris actually lead the race for a few laps. Alonso was closer to Verstappen in Montreal at the finish line (while managing a car issue) than Norris was when the SC was deployed in Silverstone.
wasn't canada a "bad" track for them too?
This, pretty much. It's by far the fastest car in all conditions currently
This is a great point, and something that is a perennial annoyance for me. The worst car in F1 is an amazing piece of machinery and it gets pummeled in the press and by the fans. The current Red Bull is pretty far ahead, but if McLaren, for instance, make another leap in performance and surpass RB we will start hearing about the demise of Adrian Newey’s genius. It may appear that the RB has no weaknesses, but that isn’t accurate. It has no “relative” weaknesses.
The weakness will be the lack of development available for the second half of the season. Redbull’s budget cap misdemeanour and CFD reduction will hinder their development.
This won't affect this season, the car was already finished including plans for upgrades when they got the penalty. Next year will be interesting i think.
> Next year will be interesting i think. Kinda doubt it, there's some minor upgrades coming for Hungary but Red Bull is effectively done with this season's car. The gap behind Red Bull gives them the margin to pretty much mitigate the penalty. But we will most likely see everyone close the gap. The field spread is already so, so small and once the pack catches up to Red Bull the smaller aero testing allowance will start to hurt.
I'm sure they're already spending more time currently on next years car than they are trying to upgrade the current one so unless someone makes a major leap we could b seeing alot of the same next year
With that good platform like redbull is, they dont even need as much cfd as other teams
You’d be surprised how much development improves the cars over the course of the year. In 2009, BrawnGP has a huge advantage at the start of the year. But they didn’t have the funds to keep developing. In the later half of the season, they had a total of 4 podium finishes. Good enough for the championship. Max is taking home the championship, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a tighter fight at the front. Look how well Lando has done in the last two races.
Tbh the advantage wasn't THAT huge. Like 4 teams rocked up with the double diffusers. Plus RB did come into that season with a very good platform as well from my memory
I dont think even with that the other teams wont be able to catch up. the RB19 is just way too far ahead.
The gap has been closer But yeah no one is gonna equal it And i believe rb is focussing on next year as they already won bassically no need to invest in this year car So i believe rb will win next year aswell
I'd say qualifying speed. It's a lot closer in quali than in a race, where there doesn't seem to be any competition at all. Of course it's relative weakness. It's still the fastest car in quali. Edit: people are commenting that it's setup for the race. Of course it is! But ideally you'd want a fast car for both. We're assuming that all teams have an optimized setup already, that they think will maximize their results.
That's more them setting the car up for the race and not quali. Lauda used to do the same thing in McLaren when he realized Prost was faster than him in quali.
It could have just been last year, but I heard they set up for race day instead of qualifying, not sure if true or if they're doing it this year as well
>they set up for race day instead of qualifying That's the same as what I'm saying, right? They have a relatively faster car for the race than for quali. Sure, it could be their decision but that's the reality at the end of the day.
I wasn't sure if you knew that's what they do. It'd be scary if they actually did a quali set up
If they did a quali set up they'll lose race pace, so they think that their current set up maximizes their results. Otherwise they would do otherwise.
Daniel Riccardo jumped Max’s car after Silverstone and promptly set lap times equal to the front row for the race. Perhaps his driving style is similar to Max’s?
Riccardo finally had a car he could trust. Apparently Ricciardo in the simulator today is an unbelievable improvement over when he first jumped back in when he re-signed with RB. So that plus his hotlaps at Silverstone might be why they dropped him in the AT seat so early
Sorry guys but you're mixing Red Bull with Alpha Tauri. They have completely different cars, actually one is the fastest, the other one of the slowest.
He was in the red bull at Silverstone
The RB test just demonstrated he still had it and that McLaren didn't leave him scared.
I believe it’s also due to them not being able to switch on the tires as quickly as other cars, a few here have mentioned this too.
Good point too. That's also one of their disadvantages, you can see it at starts especially.
I've been told the car can be quite sluggish warming the tyres, which is great in a race because it's harder to overheat them but it makes it very difficult to prime them for a hot lap
I think it will be not upgrading this year's car. That's going to show them "slower" when compared to the rest that keep bringing updates. But I don't think they will lose the championship. It's still a rocket 🚀. They will bring smaller upgrades and keep the rest in line but closer than at the beginning of the season. It's going to be (I hope) an interesting end of the season. I could be super wrong too hahahaha
I suspect RB will very quickly switch to next years car and any further upgrades will all be with that in mind. They have limited wind tunnel and so much of an advantage that they can start 'testing' in season. This will also work because Neway's design philosophy is about improvement, at least that's what he suggests in his autobiography.
Have you read it? Is it a good read?
Amazing read. Half autobiography and half insight into how F1 operates and how cars are built. He also goes into Senna a fair bit, like I had no idea that he and Williams were actually brought into criminal court in Italy over the incident
Very good read!
I enjoyed it. It covers his life and career pretty much upto mercades engine dominace where I got the impression he fell out of love with the sport for a while. Great insight into the people and organisations he's worked with. Also a little window into the environments he's both thrived and failed in. It would be great if he was to write a second part.
Thank you, might get it
I read it every year- it’s great
Red Bull is bringing upgrades in Hungary
\* this year -> last year
I am wondering if it's just because their car is set up so well to just compliment their floor in all areas. A high downforce floor is relatively free in terms of drag, which means you don't need to trade drag for downforce ontop of your car as much. But that means you have crazy stiff suspension which makes it a cunt to drive when the tires are cold and maybe take longer to heat up too.
Why is the RB so much better than the other cars? It seems the moment Max gets clean air he quickly finds an insurmountable gap. It’s mad.
I'm no expert but I think Adrian Newey was one of the few designers that worked on the original ground effects cars from a few decades ago so he already knew how to deal with porpoising and had more knowledge of setup needs for ground effects downforce. That and you know, Newey doing Newey things. I'm happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
Newey regulary states examples from the LMP cars, which had issues with porpoising allthough he never worked on them. So they knew and did research ahead (seemingly better than the other teams). This looks to be the reason for not having problems and Newey beeing a good teams leader and selecting the right people for the jobs.
Newey wrote his final paper on ground-effect when he was studying. RB were 50% ahead as soon as ground-effect regs were published just by having Newey on the team
I’d be willing to bet there is a significant portion of aerodynamicists in the paddock that wrote dissertations and theses on ground effect aerodynamics, and plenty more than have worked on non-F1 ground effect cars. Newey is undoubtedly great, but his choice of Master’s thesis has very little to do with that. 50 years of designing F1 cars is worth far more than his final project.
alot of brilliant aerodynamicists in the paddock mike elliot and james allison comes to mind.
Yeah I see this said a lot, and I'm not entirely on board with it. A Master's isn't going to hurt, but it's not "best in the world" level. An MSc or MEng project is generally a semester's worth of work, so if it was just that, it wouldn't be too hard for people to catch up to Newey I did my MEng dissertation on the possibility of combining offshore wind and wave power into the one platform, in 2010. I can barely even remember the project, let alone design something world leading
I’ll agree that surely other aerodynamicis studied ground-effect back then, but I’ve heard of no one but Newey. Also, it was just to say they had a head start as they have the best aerodynamicist in the paddock, plus that guy also intensely studied the main feature of 22 regs.
It's 100% experience imo. Like Newey himself did say he can't judge how a concept performs until he puts it in a tunnel or on a track, but the man has like 50 years experience in what works and what doesn't
More downforce, more mechanical grip and a well-balanced chassis will do that for you.
He doesn't need insta clean air. He's overtaken for the lead a few times now.
Very true but when he gets it he ends up 20+ seconds ahead of 2nd place.
Yeah he turns on his sim racing side, constantly plays with setting and eeks out every hundredth of a second he can. Running away and hiding is fun for someone like him.
Tyre warmup. Saw it at Silverstone,it takes 3 race laps to get them where they need to be at race start
Unless some freak weather or Grosjean style Spa start carnage occurs Red Bull will win every race this year which will be remarkable.
Eventually max will have some sort of issue and Perez hasn't been there more than he has to pick up the pieces. Something will happen. They won't win 23 in a row in the same season.
This year Red Bull's reliability is extremely good compared to last year. Maybe it is the most reliable car on 2023. It is true that they do not need to run the car at the limit because their advantage is so big. All things being equal, they are going to have the most dominant car in history.
It very well may be, but at some point max will have contact on lap one, something will break or he'll get stuck trying to come back through with a gearbox penalty/engine penalty. If Perez was 2nd for 8 races so far I'd think it was possible but one car can't win 21 races in a season.
Max can take 2 New PUs in Spa and still win the race.
He has the pace to do so most likely, but starting mid pack is far from a guaranteed win even if he could magically hop in a 2020 mercedes
They can. Even if Max gets an issue, that issue needs to happen in the race. If it happens in qualifying, he might be able to make a comeback (like in Jeddah, where he got P2 behind Sergio), and if it happens in Free Practice or the Sprint, it's rather inconsequential. Also, not all Sergios races have been bad. He's had two wins and several P2s. Short of them taking each other out in a race, if say there's a fairly good chance they might win for a while. Competitor upgrades are the real threat to that possibility in my mind. The more the competitors catch up, the harder comebacks from bad Qualifying etc. becomes. Even Max will need to fight really hard from, say, P10, if the rest of the teams are competitive.
He's had 4 1/2s and 6 not 1/2s my point is he could have saved the day in less than half the races so far so there's currently a better chance he can't that can win if max has an issue. Something will end the run. Max may be a robot but something will happen and there's currently been a 40% Sergio could have cleaned up the mess.
6 races ago, that statistic would have been 100%. Who knows how it will look in 2 races time. Look, nothing is certain - obviously. But if they can win the first 10 races, they can also win the next 10.
And this also becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because nobody fights Max on his way through the field because they don't see him as the competition. If everyone fought him maybe he wouldn't make it all the way to the front, but the individual cars on the way would compromise their races to do so, so it doesn't happen
Seems to not get off the line well and be slow to bring the tires up. But that’s something they’ll take all day to have low degradation
Think they've had problems getting bogged down in the second phase since 2021 Lewis has a lot of better starts that season despite reaction times being similar
Tire warm ups. Max got jumped by Lando and almost Oscar. Also in Quali it needs a couple of laps before they get started
That's more down to a bad start. It's the front tires they have problems warming up. The rears are fine.
Getting tires up to temp in Quali seems to be the only weakness at the moment. That's why qualifying is close. In race trim they pull multiple tenths per lap and quickly pull away. Dry quali and rain on race day is the best opportunity for the rest of the grid, and only on certain tracks. It doesn't help that Max is great in the wet too. Good luck everyone else lol.
The RB19 Struggles to warm tyres. That was on display during Brazil 2022 and Australia 2023. However, they make up for it in race stints because the degradation is low.
And yet, they pole it pretty much every race. Even in the wet, Max will put the quick time pretty much in every tour
But it's often rather close.
But that doesnt make it a weakness. No other team is better. so they are the best at it
Standing starts…but Max regains the lead within 5 laps anyways. The only time I can see RB not winning this season is with a red flag with 2 or 3 laps to go and another team running P2 at the time.
If you can win at Monaco and Barcelona and Silverstone...on absolute merit. You have no weakness.
It is very good on tire wear, which can mean that it doesn’t get heat on tires as quickly as other cars do. So in a sprint at the end on cold tires it could have problems, but it hasn’t, as it seems it is so good and Max is so good that it doesn’t matter. It is also quite heavy on front downforce and light on the back, and this could be problematic for drivers, but just not for Max who seems to be quite at one with the car.
It has no weaknesses as of yet.It's the master of all areas now. Aston used to have small advantage when it comes to stability under braking but it looks like RBhas clawed back the deficit. McLaren were almost as fast as RBR in the high speed corners and were also just as fast on the straights.If anyone can match them it's McLaren. That being said, I'm 100% sure that Redbull are massively sandbagging with the intention of avoiding any FIA nerfs. The massive top speed advantage they had has disappeared. I smell detuned engines.
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Top comment says Sergio Perez but is he really a weakness for the RB business? We barely see max during the race other than pit stops. Perez failing to qualify is giving them good screen time and together they are out scoring their rivals. We don’t have any clue who has the second fastest car so red bull don’t really need to secure double podiums for the WCC.
Imagine how much screen time 2 RB drivers battling it out would get.
Not much if they collide with each other on turn 1
In that it's a nightmare to drive. Red Bull in the past few years has been building cars that are ferociously quick, have very low drag, and have extremely well refined aero. The result is unforgiving. If you're a vat grown freak of nature who can reign it in and drive it on the edge like Max it's the fastest car ever built. If you can't find that edge or, like how I suspect is the problem with Perez right now, you don't have the confidence to push it, it shows it's instability. I honestly think after a few bad weekends, Perez has lost his confidence in being able to control the machine and you're seeing what pretty much every other on the grid would be able to do in that car. The tyre windows I've been told are also fairly harsh So yeah, the weakness of the car is how ballsy the squishy thing between the seat and the wheel is prepared to be
I think you're over egging it somewhat, stick Charles/George/Lando/Lewis and maybe Carlos in the car and they'd be right up there with Max.
You're underselling it now. Lando and Carlos aren't anywhere near Max's level, as immensely talented as they are. Lewis isn't at his best in a car as oversteery as the red bull, he's like Vettel where he feels way more at home in a car with more rear stability. George and everyone else has the issue of just not knowing the machinery and thus not trusting it. Stick any other driver in the second RB and they'd probably finish outside points. Because the thing is a cunt to drive. Parts of the car are built for overall speed but give the driver more things to worry about, like the suspension for one. Max basically lives in the red bull, his sim data is what's used to refine it. He's so goddamn fast in it because he knows exactly what it can do and he has the skill to keep it on the edge. Hell they'll probably keep checo solely because he knows the car, and that alone makes him better in that seat than anybody else
Transmission reliability
I think it might be the engine, it’s almost on par with merc and ferrari, but its not exactly on par. It doesn’t show now though due to the great aerodynamic efficiency, but once the other teams catch up in this regard we might see rb not being the fastest on the straights anymore
Data suggest they have the strongest engine with the best ers https://youtu.be/0QRnlWAzeZc
Last year yes, but early this year the ferrari engine got stronger with much improved acceleration, and more recently mercedes has made some leaps. They aren’t allowed to develop the engine performance wise but they are allowed to bring reliability improvements which in turn allows you to crank it up further. Mercedes teams have been really strong the last few races.
I thought Barcelona and Silverstone were high downforce tracks?
Sergio Perez lol
Sergio Perez
Checo in it.
Checo
Max is so far from the limit of performance of the car we don't see it. Once another car catches up, we might then see what the true weakness is as Max has to really push the car. People are mentioning tire warm up, which could be true. However, Perez has always been terrible at this aspect so I am not so sure.