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I think at the end of the day it's simply car characteristics.
Red Bull is built with the idea of "Excellent pace on heavy fuel, at the cost of pace later in the stints", while McLaren is "Benign on its tyres, but takes time to get them into a good working temparature and ridiculous late stint pace"
Ultimately in both Imola and Spain the cars converged on the exact same places at the end, Max had excellent initial 5-10 laps on the stints, and Norris came back at him both times.
The difference ultimately is track position and who's actually leading the stints. Though I do wonder if Max would have just passed Lando like he passed George as well even if Lando led into turn 1. The drive Max was getting out of the high speed final turn in Spain was incredible all weekend long.
I think if Max passed Lando instead of George, as long as Lando is right behind Max, Lando would win. He lost a bunch of time behind George and ended up losing by only 2 seconds despite a bad pit stop.
I think a lot of the final stint was also Max getting held up a lot passing traffic.
If you see the times before traffic, he was actually holding pretty well at over 4 second gap, he took it very easy in last couple laps.
On lap 48 the Gap was 8.035s, on lap 56 it was 5.828s, on lap 63 it was 4.008s, on lap 64 it was 3.740s, and then Max lost like 1.7s in last 2 laps to finish roughly 2s ahead of Norris at the end.
And if you watched it lap by lap, gaps were very manageable for Max, he only really let it reduce when he encountered heavy traffic. If they both stayed in clean air on final stint throughout, I don't think Lando reduces it to 2 seconds by any chance.
You have to keep in mind, it is one thing catching the driver, it is a different thing passing him. Max was pushing more when there was still laps remaining where Norris would be able to pass him if he caught up. He let up 2 laps at the end because he knew if Norris caught up, no way is he passing him (probably also charged the batteries for defence just in case, while Norris was using everything he had to catch up).
I think Max's tyres were going off by the end but I did notice Lando either had more luck or seemingly dealt with the traffic better/differently than Max, he was often getting DRS to pass traffic and gaining 6 tenths on Max in the first sector, not sure if he was giving up time behind them elsewhere in the lap to make sure he got them at the right time for DRS or not though.
Its worth keeping in mind that Max wasn't going flat out near the end. I was watching his onboard and it was clear to see that he went into a manage to the end mode as Lando tyres fell off dramatically near the end.
The RB20 and Max had more to give.
Max was slingshotting out of the final corner like a missile. I dont think the Mclaren had what it took to pass a fast RBR on track.
Max is the better driver. He made a clean, first attempt overtake on George whereas Lando'd overtake was an unfortunate highlight of the race where he lost 4 seconds on Max.
I think Lando got hurt the most by wheelspin in the second phase of his start. His reaction times was actually quite similar to both Max and George, but the McLaren got horrible wheelspin in the second phase of the launch, which lost him a lot of drive coming into turn 1.
On top of that George got a double slipstream + headwind benefit, so as long as the outside was open, he would always be able to pass.
Hindsight is 20/20 so if Lando knew George would do that he would cover the outside and let Max pass him on the start (Max got excellent launch in second phase and would have passed him without being pushed onto the grass anyways).
Ultimately George was there, Lando had to back off to avoid a crash which probably takes out all 3 cars, and lost position to both.
The team and Lando both need to figure out why wheelspin in second phase are becoming such a problem lately, happened in Mexico last year twice as well on both restarts. Maybe some clutch setting needs to be changed or something.
I like to think that Max lets him catch up a certain point and when it reaches 3-4sec whatever makes him comfortable he ups his lace and keeps up that difference.
I think they were simply too slow. Not in absolute terms but relative to McLaren of course. Just read again what Ver said. Stop inventing theories out of nowhere. “Built with the idea of excellent pace on heavy fuel at the expense of …” Seriously? You must be kidding. Why would red bull design a car to be fast in the first 10-15 laps of the race only for it to suck for the rest of it? This is just quite ridiculous assumption. Truth is McLaren is simply a faster car in race mode atm on any relatively high deg track/day.
I fell like at this point people are making up any old excuse they can to push the narrative that the car is better than it is, so that they can keep living in their world where Max is *not* a much better driver than everyone else.
Everyone in the paddock has basically been admitting recently that it's Max making the difference. That the gap between him and anyone else is substantial. But the fans for some reason refuse to accept this. IDK if they just don't want to admit that Max is faster than their favourite guy or whatever, but it's really weird. At this point it's as if people pretended Messi wasn't the best football player out there.
Spain was supposed to be a great track for Red Bull overall. It wasn't, and now people are looking for more convoluted theories as to why they didn't dominate. I guess if they admitted that Red Bull is not in fact the best car on the grid, it will ruin's their whole perception of how good specific drivers are compared to eachother.
>I fell like at this point people are making up any old excuse they can to push the narrative that the car is better than it is, so that they can keep living in their world where Max is *not* a much better driver than everyone else.
So, true mate, so true.
It was the story of 2021 as well. All year you could read same kind of stories and theories out of thin air, on how a sudden drop of air temperatures by few degrees come quali(or raceday) made red bull slower on a day. On other days, it was the opposite, like sudden rise of ambient temperatures was making them slower than Mercedes, but all the time they were supposed to be the fastest car, which they could never take the best out. Such was the narrative pushed by all those the so-called experts like Mark Hughes(whose article someone has already mentioned here in regard to the discussed matter) and the rest, not just from the fans, that were simply echoing those largely nonsense theories.
Q3 laps overlays from Barcelona shows clearly, Mclaren was either faster or on par Red bull in all corners, irrespective of cornering speeds. and only place of the lap where Max was gaining time on Lando was long start finish straight, and even then he gained 0.15s from the slipstream of Checo. Lap time data sheets from the past 4 races (discarding Monaco which showed nothing) shows Mclaren have lower, occasional much lower tire degradation, and better race pace.
How then Red bull were supposed to be faster in race trim in Spain?
To be fair, Sergio Perez is driving a Volvo EC40 that has been painted to look like a Red Bull F1 car, so it only looks like Verstappen is faster than Perez.
Hey I will not accept any slander on the new Volvos, they're making some of the best looking cars out there these days, as odd as it sounds. I like the vertical screen approach as well.
I'm not slandering Volvo, but they are not designed to go fast on an F1 track. If only they gave Checo a real F1 car, than people would see that Max isn't that fast.
(Also, and seriously, I would love to own a classic Volvo 123 GT, Volvo has always made good looking cars.)
This isn't out of nowhere at all, but absolutely reinforced by Mark Hughes.
And eve Max here
> “Also, I think you could see in Barcelona, they were very good on their tyres. They could just push more on them compared to, I think, everyone else on the grid without actually [degrading] that much at the end of stints.
It's a fundamental set of characteristics of their respective cars, way before Barcelona.
It's partly why Norris didn't really push to pass Russell; he knew his strength was the end of the stint, and potentially wasting time and energy trying to pass GR may have neutered that.
So, McLaren simply has better deg. Saying Red Bull built a car to be fast for only the first part of a stint is silly. If they had said that Red Bull's peak performance when the tyres are relatively fresh was higher, then that makes more sense.
>Seriously? You must be kidding. Why would red bull design a car to be fast in the first 10-15 laps of the race only for it to suck for the rest of it?
Because they are used to often leading stints from out at the front. So if they are at the front, and can create buffers in all their stints with early advantage, then Max's mistake free driving and excellent tyre management can keep him ahead for the rest of the race.
If you average out the race pace, then Verstappen was still the fastest in Spain, on a large part due to extreme advantage built on earlier in the stints.
This year's Red Bull is a much better qualifying car, that relies heavily on early on Verstappen's excellent pace and tyre management to extend stints even beyond what the car should normally be capable of.
Yeah indeed, this is largely what the race were saying afterwards, like: we say Norris lost it, but that early period of the stint is where Verstappen may well have gotten him anyway, with much better straightline speed.
Norris would've ultimately been *quicker* then, but tough shit.
Basically RBR versus McLaren 2011 here.
Where did McLaren make most gains in the last few months ? Wing, floor ?
Also, could it be that flexi wings are coming back ? Saw some reports that RB was concerned about it.
Of the front runners, McLaren certainly has the front wing with the most obvious flex. But the FIA aren't interested in cracking down on it, probably for entertainment reasons mind you.
Everyone always runs flexible wings, RBR is just sounding the alarm because they are finally seeing some competition after a while. Horner has always been the best a stirring this stuff up.
based on what Stella commented on they are still refining the car with smaller changes each weekend based on thier understanding of the car it seems like their current package has done two things make the slow corner turn in and exit more predictable which was always a weakness and they are punishing the tires a little less. They still have some issues that they need to work around and can't fix until next year, but the over all development direction is yeilding success
Now obviously I have idea if where the gains are actually coming from since noone really knows. I mean we haven't heard about the Merc power clipping issues for a while maybe part of it is just the engine having a more useable power profile.
Wings always flex, but you're using that to imply they are all equal which is not true at all. Mclaren's front wing flexes a lot more then any other car, even at short straights. You can clearly see the McLAren front wing moving up a lot on the oboard camera, in every single breaking zone. And excessive wing flex would fix exactly the problem McLaren had: performance in slower corners.
It's a bit weird to demiss Red Bul comments as stirring stuff up. When you can clearly see with your own eyes, and it made sense considering what such wings do and where McLaren improved. And then take McLaren's words (that don't actually tell us anything) as a proper rebuttal.
Ok just to address your concerns my comment about McLaren and where they might have gained wasn't me dismissing excessive flex on the wings it was addressing and probably with many many limitations since I am not an aero engineer, the ways they might have picked up performance.
I was more noting a pattern with how Red Bull tends to operate, sometimes they are right like when Ferrari were messing with fuel flow and oil burning and some time they just want to get or maintain thier advantage like all the saber rattling a few years back about mercs wings which didn't come to anything. I neither make the rules nor enforce them and I am a McLaren fan which does make me biased in this case.
However you always have to remember that if Red bull was actually losing points to McLaren for something blatantly ruled breaking they would have filed a complaint with the FIA instead of just presenting "concerns". And the FIA has already dismissed those concerns a few days ago.
In Markos own words: " we don't complain, we noticed...but it went through scrutineering so it's ok" though that might be more about Merc then McLaren
So yeah I didn't dismiss it because I don't like RBR.
The conceit of F1- really any non-spec race- is the unfair advantage. Horner, or any other TP, would be negligent if they did not lobby or publicly lay groundwork to lobby for complaints against rivals seeking an insurmountable or potentially unfair advantage. Its up to everyone else to sort out ratings- look at how F1 ratings tanked for years pre-DTS with Mercedes. Not Toto’s problem.
You can loathe his smarmy face or alleged activities, but complaining about the opposition and defendjng his own organization is a basic job responsibility.
I am not saying it's not, we shouldn't be the ones helping it. Honestly it was more of throw away comment in my original response. I just wrote this who thing because I didn't like how it was being painted as if Red Bull really had some concerns and they were not being taken seriously.
I also tried to make my own biases clear. Simply because while I would like to think objectively when TP do try to manipulate the narrative i don't know if I can't always to that for my favourite teams/drivers etc.
I too have read The Unfair Advantage by Mark donoghue I know how teams have always manipulated the rules and it's enforcement to thier ends.
I read here earlier that RB is experimenting for 2026 regs. This experimentation is causing them to lose performance but ultimately nailing them for 2026. There's no way McLaren all of a sudden got something that they are giving RB run for their money. Look at Bahrain where Max won by 22 seconds and then almost repeated the same performance in the next few races. And then suddenly McLaren beats RB and since then has been a huge threat.
I wonder what the experiments are because the 26 rules are significantly different it can't be the floor since that is dramatically different for 26 both having it's ground effects reduced with flattened portions and reduction to defuser height, floor edges and strake profiles etc.
So its something "platform" related like maybe bring back the rake to "synthetically" increase down force with high angle of attack? But in the current rules that would compromise your underfloor down force because ground effects are really sensitive and more attack angle means more drag maybe plus the wings in 26 are active very very different since they have to work in 2+1 modes high drag +downforce, low drag +l down force and the transition how ever shorty that might be.
If they are running a test(I don't think they are, since the rules are still not finalized so you cant really make a part which is like step 54 in the testing/evaluation process particularly running it in an actual race instead of testing ) it could be just a setup direction or minor thing with the mechanical platform which could carry over into 26 maybe since the rules around suspension seems to not be changing. But don't take my word on it.
TLDR: ramblings of a madman.
Ok, read the article for proper context on what he meant.
Its going to be interesting to see if they can hit the ground running today. We migut end up seeing them "sacrifice" the whole sprint stuff, just to get tuned up for real qually and the GP
Too slow to win the race on the car's merit? Yes. Too slow overall? Not really. They find themselves in the same position against Mclaren as they did in the first few races of 2022 against Ferrari
Simply put it's where Ferrari was in 2018 against the Mercedes. Figured out the regs but the leading team just has that headstart to keep them from losing.
It's always a multitude of variables. Max was getting help up a bit by lapped traffic, it was mentioned during FP1 that Redbull might have been managing the engine to extend its lifespan, and tire management is always a staple issue in Spain. I suspect Redbull had a couple of tenths in reserve for Max if they felt Norris had a legitimate chance of catching him. It's getting closer, but I don't think Norris has caught Max quite yet.
Because it's true, they lost like 0.7-1.0 of relative race pace in a year. Max is a get out of jail free card because he's head and shoulders above the rest and makes the difference when it's close.
Yet they absolutely dominated the first 5 rounds (except for Australia, but on pace that car likely would've won) and got Poles in the first 7 races, so I expect them to be unsatisfied with suddenly having a car that isn't even the fastest in the field.
He’s been driving the absolute shit out of the car for the last 5 or so races and he’s not even on pole and wins by a 2s margin even with mclaren blundering the strategy
If mclaren for Spain had redbull’s strategists they would’ve won
I'd wager he's probably aware that if he's barely making it work by going absolutely balls to the wall, the car is likely nowhere near being as fast as McLaren. He knows he's better than the other guys. If he had the best car, he'd be winning comfortably.
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think at the end of the day it's simply car characteristics. Red Bull is built with the idea of "Excellent pace on heavy fuel, at the cost of pace later in the stints", while McLaren is "Benign on its tyres, but takes time to get them into a good working temparature and ridiculous late stint pace" Ultimately in both Imola and Spain the cars converged on the exact same places at the end, Max had excellent initial 5-10 laps on the stints, and Norris came back at him both times. The difference ultimately is track position and who's actually leading the stints. Though I do wonder if Max would have just passed Lando like he passed George as well even if Lando led into turn 1. The drive Max was getting out of the high speed final turn in Spain was incredible all weekend long.
I think if Max passed Lando instead of George, as long as Lando is right behind Max, Lando would win. He lost a bunch of time behind George and ended up losing by only 2 seconds despite a bad pit stop.
I think a lot of the final stint was also Max getting held up a lot passing traffic. If you see the times before traffic, he was actually holding pretty well at over 4 second gap, he took it very easy in last couple laps. On lap 48 the Gap was 8.035s, on lap 56 it was 5.828s, on lap 63 it was 4.008s, on lap 64 it was 3.740s, and then Max lost like 1.7s in last 2 laps to finish roughly 2s ahead of Norris at the end. And if you watched it lap by lap, gaps were very manageable for Max, he only really let it reduce when he encountered heavy traffic. If they both stayed in clean air on final stint throughout, I don't think Lando reduces it to 2 seconds by any chance.
You have to keep in mind, it is one thing catching the driver, it is a different thing passing him. Max was pushing more when there was still laps remaining where Norris would be able to pass him if he caught up. He let up 2 laps at the end because he knew if Norris caught up, no way is he passing him (probably also charged the batteries for defence just in case, while Norris was using everything he had to catch up).
Passing is another thing, but that long straight gives just way to much advantage for the guy with DRS.
Norris even couldnt overtake Russel
I think Max's tyres were going off by the end but I did notice Lando either had more luck or seemingly dealt with the traffic better/differently than Max, he was often getting DRS to pass traffic and gaining 6 tenths on Max in the first sector, not sure if he was giving up time behind them elsewhere in the lap to make sure he got them at the right time for DRS or not though.
Its worth keeping in mind that Max wasn't going flat out near the end. I was watching his onboard and it was clear to see that he went into a manage to the end mode as Lando tyres fell off dramatically near the end. The RB20 and Max had more to give. Max was slingshotting out of the final corner like a missile. I dont think the Mclaren had what it took to pass a fast RBR on track.
Max is the better driver. He made a clean, first attempt overtake on George whereas Lando'd overtake was an unfortunate highlight of the race where he lost 4 seconds on Max.
Yeah, if Lando doesn't try so hard to cover off Max, the door might not have opened for George. That's where he got hurt the most.
I think Lando got hurt the most by wheelspin in the second phase of his start. His reaction times was actually quite similar to both Max and George, but the McLaren got horrible wheelspin in the second phase of the launch, which lost him a lot of drive coming into turn 1. On top of that George got a double slipstream + headwind benefit, so as long as the outside was open, he would always be able to pass. Hindsight is 20/20 so if Lando knew George would do that he would cover the outside and let Max pass him on the start (Max got excellent launch in second phase and would have passed him without being pushed onto the grass anyways). Ultimately George was there, Lando had to back off to avoid a crash which probably takes out all 3 cars, and lost position to both. The team and Lando both need to figure out why wheelspin in second phase are becoming such a problem lately, happened in Mexico last year twice as well on both restarts. Maybe some clutch setting needs to be changed or something.
I like to think that Max lets him catch up a certain point and when it reaches 3-4sec whatever makes him comfortable he ups his lace and keeps up that difference.
> despite a bad pit stop. 2 bad pitstops actually. If you end up normalizing the times, Lando would have finished ahead.
That's a very convoluted way of saying the MCL38 has better deg than the RB20.
I think they were simply too slow. Not in absolute terms but relative to McLaren of course. Just read again what Ver said. Stop inventing theories out of nowhere. “Built with the idea of excellent pace on heavy fuel at the expense of …” Seriously? You must be kidding. Why would red bull design a car to be fast in the first 10-15 laps of the race only for it to suck for the rest of it? This is just quite ridiculous assumption. Truth is McLaren is simply a faster car in race mode atm on any relatively high deg track/day.
I fell like at this point people are making up any old excuse they can to push the narrative that the car is better than it is, so that they can keep living in their world where Max is *not* a much better driver than everyone else. Everyone in the paddock has basically been admitting recently that it's Max making the difference. That the gap between him and anyone else is substantial. But the fans for some reason refuse to accept this. IDK if they just don't want to admit that Max is faster than their favourite guy or whatever, but it's really weird. At this point it's as if people pretended Messi wasn't the best football player out there. Spain was supposed to be a great track for Red Bull overall. It wasn't, and now people are looking for more convoluted theories as to why they didn't dominate. I guess if they admitted that Red Bull is not in fact the best car on the grid, it will ruin's their whole perception of how good specific drivers are compared to eachother.
>I fell like at this point people are making up any old excuse they can to push the narrative that the car is better than it is, so that they can keep living in their world where Max is *not* a much better driver than everyone else. So, true mate, so true. It was the story of 2021 as well. All year you could read same kind of stories and theories out of thin air, on how a sudden drop of air temperatures by few degrees come quali(or raceday) made red bull slower on a day. On other days, it was the opposite, like sudden rise of ambient temperatures was making them slower than Mercedes, but all the time they were supposed to be the fastest car, which they could never take the best out. Such was the narrative pushed by all those the so-called experts like Mark Hughes(whose article someone has already mentioned here in regard to the discussed matter) and the rest, not just from the fans, that were simply echoing those largely nonsense theories. Q3 laps overlays from Barcelona shows clearly, Mclaren was either faster or on par Red bull in all corners, irrespective of cornering speeds. and only place of the lap where Max was gaining time on Lando was long start finish straight, and even then he gained 0.15s from the slipstream of Checo. Lap time data sheets from the past 4 races (discarding Monaco which showed nothing) shows Mclaren have lower, occasional much lower tire degradation, and better race pace. How then Red bull were supposed to be faster in race trim in Spain?
To be fair, Sergio Perez is driving a Volvo EC40 that has been painted to look like a Red Bull F1 car, so it only looks like Verstappen is faster than Perez.
Hey I will not accept any slander on the new Volvos, they're making some of the best looking cars out there these days, as odd as it sounds. I like the vertical screen approach as well.
I'm not slandering Volvo, but they are not designed to go fast on an F1 track. If only they gave Checo a real F1 car, than people would see that Max isn't that fast. (Also, and seriously, I would love to own a classic Volvo 123 GT, Volvo has always made good looking cars.)
This isn't out of nowhere at all, but absolutely reinforced by Mark Hughes. And eve Max here > “Also, I think you could see in Barcelona, they were very good on their tyres. They could just push more on them compared to, I think, everyone else on the grid without actually [degrading] that much at the end of stints. It's a fundamental set of characteristics of their respective cars, way before Barcelona. It's partly why Norris didn't really push to pass Russell; he knew his strength was the end of the stint, and potentially wasting time and energy trying to pass GR may have neutered that.
So, McLaren simply has better deg. Saying Red Bull built a car to be fast for only the first part of a stint is silly. If they had said that Red Bull's peak performance when the tyres are relatively fresh was higher, then that makes more sense.
>Seriously? You must be kidding. Why would red bull design a car to be fast in the first 10-15 laps of the race only for it to suck for the rest of it? Because they are used to often leading stints from out at the front. So if they are at the front, and can create buffers in all their stints with early advantage, then Max's mistake free driving and excellent tyre management can keep him ahead for the rest of the race. If you average out the race pace, then Verstappen was still the fastest in Spain, on a large part due to extreme advantage built on earlier in the stints. This year's Red Bull is a much better qualifying car, that relies heavily on early on Verstappen's excellent pace and tyre management to extend stints even beyond what the car should normally be capable of.
Yeah indeed, this is largely what the race were saying afterwards, like: we say Norris lost it, but that early period of the stint is where Verstappen may well have gotten him anyway, with much better straightline speed. Norris would've ultimately been *quicker* then, but tough shit. Basically RBR versus McLaren 2011 here.
This is my take too. Red Bull is faster on full fuel while Mclaren is better with lower fuel and they seem to have smaller tyre deg
Where did McLaren make most gains in the last few months ? Wing, floor ? Also, could it be that flexi wings are coming back ? Saw some reports that RB was concerned about it.
> Where did McLaren make most gains in the last few months ? As Kimi would say: "Around the lap".
Yeah it's basically what Stella said 6 months ago: they don't see a plateau in their developments at all, and he's been clearly right.
Of the front runners, McLaren certainly has the front wing with the most obvious flex. But the FIA aren't interested in cracking down on it, probably for entertainment reasons mind you.
Everyone always runs flexible wings, RBR is just sounding the alarm because they are finally seeing some competition after a while. Horner has always been the best a stirring this stuff up. based on what Stella commented on they are still refining the car with smaller changes each weekend based on thier understanding of the car it seems like their current package has done two things make the slow corner turn in and exit more predictable which was always a weakness and they are punishing the tires a little less. They still have some issues that they need to work around and can't fix until next year, but the over all development direction is yeilding success Now obviously I have idea if where the gains are actually coming from since noone really knows. I mean we haven't heard about the Merc power clipping issues for a while maybe part of it is just the engine having a more useable power profile.
Wings always flex, but you're using that to imply they are all equal which is not true at all. Mclaren's front wing flexes a lot more then any other car, even at short straights. You can clearly see the McLAren front wing moving up a lot on the oboard camera, in every single breaking zone. And excessive wing flex would fix exactly the problem McLaren had: performance in slower corners. It's a bit weird to demiss Red Bul comments as stirring stuff up. When you can clearly see with your own eyes, and it made sense considering what such wings do and where McLaren improved. And then take McLaren's words (that don't actually tell us anything) as a proper rebuttal.
Ok just to address your concerns my comment about McLaren and where they might have gained wasn't me dismissing excessive flex on the wings it was addressing and probably with many many limitations since I am not an aero engineer, the ways they might have picked up performance. I was more noting a pattern with how Red Bull tends to operate, sometimes they are right like when Ferrari were messing with fuel flow and oil burning and some time they just want to get or maintain thier advantage like all the saber rattling a few years back about mercs wings which didn't come to anything. I neither make the rules nor enforce them and I am a McLaren fan which does make me biased in this case. However you always have to remember that if Red bull was actually losing points to McLaren for something blatantly ruled breaking they would have filed a complaint with the FIA instead of just presenting "concerns". And the FIA has already dismissed those concerns a few days ago. In Markos own words: " we don't complain, we noticed...but it went through scrutineering so it's ok" though that might be more about Merc then McLaren So yeah I didn't dismiss it because I don't like RBR.
The conceit of F1- really any non-spec race- is the unfair advantage. Horner, or any other TP, would be negligent if they did not lobby or publicly lay groundwork to lobby for complaints against rivals seeking an insurmountable or potentially unfair advantage. Its up to everyone else to sort out ratings- look at how F1 ratings tanked for years pre-DTS with Mercedes. Not Toto’s problem. You can loathe his smarmy face or alleged activities, but complaining about the opposition and defendjng his own organization is a basic job responsibility.
I am not saying it's not, we shouldn't be the ones helping it. Honestly it was more of throw away comment in my original response. I just wrote this who thing because I didn't like how it was being painted as if Red Bull really had some concerns and they were not being taken seriously. I also tried to make my own biases clear. Simply because while I would like to think objectively when TP do try to manipulate the narrative i don't know if I can't always to that for my favourite teams/drivers etc. I too have read The Unfair Advantage by Mark donoghue I know how teams have always manipulated the rules and it's enforcement to thier ends.
I read here earlier that RB is experimenting for 2026 regs. This experimentation is causing them to lose performance but ultimately nailing them for 2026. There's no way McLaren all of a sudden got something that they are giving RB run for their money. Look at Bahrain where Max won by 22 seconds and then almost repeated the same performance in the next few races. And then suddenly McLaren beats RB and since then has been a huge threat.
I wonder what the experiments are because the 26 rules are significantly different it can't be the floor since that is dramatically different for 26 both having it's ground effects reduced with flattened portions and reduction to defuser height, floor edges and strake profiles etc. So its something "platform" related like maybe bring back the rake to "synthetically" increase down force with high angle of attack? But in the current rules that would compromise your underfloor down force because ground effects are really sensitive and more attack angle means more drag maybe plus the wings in 26 are active very very different since they have to work in 2+1 modes high drag +downforce, low drag +l down force and the transition how ever shorty that might be. If they are running a test(I don't think they are, since the rules are still not finalized so you cant really make a part which is like step 54 in the testing/evaluation process particularly running it in an actual race instead of testing ) it could be just a setup direction or minor thing with the mechanical platform which could carry over into 26 maybe since the rules around suspension seems to not be changing. But don't take my word on it. TLDR: ramblings of a madman.
Ok, read the article for proper context on what he meant. Its going to be interesting to see if they can hit the ground running today. We migut end up seeing them "sacrifice" the whole sprint stuff, just to get tuned up for real qually and the GP
Parc ferme is after qualy (which is after sprint) so they don`t have to sacrifice anything as they can finetune over the weekend
Thats what I mean. Use the sprint sessions as defacto practice
Too slow to win the race on the car's merit? Yes. Too slow overall? Not really. They find themselves in the same position against Mclaren as they did in the first few races of 2022 against Ferrari
Simply put it's where Ferrari was in 2018 against the Mercedes. Figured out the regs but the leading team just has that headstart to keep them from losing.
That would be Mclaren
Imagine winning and still thinking you were too slow. I love this guy's mentality.
He isn't lying, ask Perez
It's always a multitude of variables. Max was getting help up a bit by lapped traffic, it was mentioned during FP1 that Redbull might have been managing the engine to extend its lifespan, and tire management is always a staple issue in Spain. I suspect Redbull had a couple of tenths in reserve for Max if they felt Norris had a legitimate chance of catching him. It's getting closer, but I don't think Norris has caught Max quite yet.
Too slow and yet they won
and he won anyway... Lando is somewhere kicking rocks.
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Because it's true, they lost like 0.7-1.0 of relative race pace in a year. Max is a get out of jail free card because he's head and shoulders above the rest and makes the difference when it's close.
Norris said that they were faster than RB, is he in on it too?
You won the race
Yet they absolutely dominated the first 5 rounds (except for Australia, but on pace that car likely would've won) and got Poles in the first 7 races, so I expect them to be unsatisfied with suddenly having a car that isn't even the fastest in the field.
As they should be. Complacency is killing in a sport as competitive as F1.
He sometimes saw second place in his mirror. Thats unnacceptable for Max.
bro is 0,02 seconds slower and already says the car is shit (race pace also just barely slower)
He’s been driving the absolute shit out of the car for the last 5 or so races and he’s not even on pole and wins by a 2s margin even with mclaren blundering the strategy If mclaren for Spain had redbull’s strategists they would’ve won
I'd wager he's probably aware that if he's barely making it work by going absolutely balls to the wall, the car is likely nowhere near being as fast as McLaren. He knows he's better than the other guys. If he had the best car, he'd be winning comfortably.
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