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Posted

Random thought... With the reg changes coming meaning this year's car will be very different to next year's (so less to learn from a competitor, relatively speaking), I think it'd be wildly entertaining to have drivers swap cars and do a few laps. I'm curious what the elite drivers (Lewis, Oscar, Fernando... George?) would do in that Red Bull and also what Max would do in a less pointy car. And then for real shits and giggles, stick them all in the Alpine.

Posted

Newey mentioned in his book that the estimated value of the advertising gained by Red Bull for simply being involved in F1 between 2000-2014 was 1.6 billion pounds so while they aren't a car company their has been economic value from sponsoring the team. 

I think the question is whether the son who owns 49% or the Yoovidhya family who owns the other 51% wishes to remaining in F1. 

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Posted
4 hours ago, kevwun said:

I wonder if this wasn't a move to keep Verstappen.  Jos doesn't like Horner and they both love Marko.

That was my first thought as well, and Martin thinks that's it, too.

Posted

Holy cow, I've been out of pocket today and just heard the news.

I'm both surprised, and unsurprised by it.  I guess I just didn't think it would happen quite yet, even if the writing seems to have been on the wall for a while.

It would be pretty crazy for RBR to ditch Horner, then still lose Max, after already losing Newey.  That's a lot of big blows in succession.

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, dieucla98 said:

... I'm curious what the elite drivers (Lewis, Oscar, Fernando... George?)

LOL at least one of these doesn't belong in a sentence about elite drivers.

Edited by wood
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Posted
12 minutes ago, PGFrog said:

Newey mentioned in his book that the estimated value of the advertising gained by Red Bull for simply being involved in F1 between 2000-2014 was 1.6 billion pounds so while they aren't a car company their has been economic value from sponsoring the team. 

I think the question is whether the son who owns 49% or the Yoovidhya family who owns the other 51% wishes to remaining in F1. 

Aren't they Thai? I'm sure y'all can see where I'm going with this.

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Posted
1 minute ago, wood said:

LOL at least one of these doesn't belong in a sentence about elite drivers.

George has his moments where you can see it. Then he bins it on the final lap. I did put a question mark on his name, in my defense. 

Posted (edited)

Wonder whether Max (or his camp) let it be known to Red Bull that he was opting out of his contract after this year. Losing Max and Adrian Newey, the best driver on the grid and the aero whisperer whose chassis have won 12 WCC and 14 WDC, in consecutive years convinced the Thai shareholder the team needed a reset. If they’re stuck with a tractor no one but Max can drive, RB might as well start the reboot now.

If it’s a roll of the dice to get Max to stay…. Bold strategy, Cotton. 

From the POV of a driver…. 2026 is a new reg year. Would it be better to stick a year and see who nails the regs? Especially if you’re Max who would be wanted at every team? George must have been ecstatic at getting moved up to Merc in 2022: “I’m in a car that has won seven consecutive WCCs!” Only they messed up the regs. What if Max jumps to Merc only for Newey to do an Adrain Newey and design AM a title car. Seems better for Max to jump after 26, but WDIK.

Edited by Dutch
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Posted (edited)

I would put George and LeClerc at about the same level.  They are both capable of good performances particularly in qualifying, but also like to shit the bed at less than ideal moments.

Edited by kevwun
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Posted
Just now, dieucla98 said:

George has his moments where you can see it. Then he bins it on the final lap. I did put a question mark on his name, in my defense. 

My view of George is that he's quick, and that's about it. His racecraft is a running joke, even in the F1 movie. You gotta be quick, but ya gotta be a lot more than that. He's not even top 6 in the current field imho. 

Posted

You're basically guessing when it comes to picking who will figure out the new regs first.  History says 1 team is going to do it significantly better than the rest of the field and everyone else will be playing catch up for at least a year or 2.  A 1 year deal is probably Max's best option if he doesn't want to gamble on ending up in a bad car.

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Posted
Just now, kevwun said:

You're basically guessing when it comes to picking who will figure out the new regs first.  History says 1 team is going to do it significantly better than the rest of the field and everyone else will be playing catch up for at least a year or 2.  A 1 year deal is probably Max's best option if he doesn't want to gamble on ending up in a bad car.

Yeah if I had to bet, he'll re-up with the Bulls for 1 year.

Posted (edited)

Look how bad Mercedes initially fucked up on the current regs.  They went from 7 in a row to having a car that almost rattled Hamilton's teeth out of his head when the rules changed.  They had to start over from scratch after their initial design was so bad.  Red Bull was historically dominant just 2 years ago and now they have the one of the slowest cars in the field.  The same thing is probably going to happen to McLaren when other teams start hiring talent away from them.  There's no safe way to pick ahead of the changes.  Either you pick a good team and commit for the long haul or you wait a year and go where they have it figured out.

Edited by kevwun
Posted
1 hour ago, wood said:

Aren't they Thai? I'm sure y'all can see where I'm going with this.

Yes,  I think I read the are worth between $35-40 billion so the side venture of a F-1 racing team is pretty much a toy and more practical  than say, buying high school offensive tackles.  

Posted
3 hours ago, morehornsepower said:

- Red Bull is not a car manufacturer (I know, shocking)...if they become a back marker, I wouldn't be surprised to see them just pull out of F1 completely.

Have been discussing this w/ my nephew today.  One one hand, F1 has got to be their biggest marketing investment.  On the other, if they can't figure out how to fight for constructor titles, how long does Red Bull support a weak effort?  

Posted
3 hours ago, morehornsepower said:

Red Bull is not a car manufacturer (I know, shocking)...if they become a back marker, I wouldn't be surprised to see them just pull out of F1 completely.

I would be very surprised. Energy drinks are basically all marketing and F1 provides a shitload of marketing value for them. On top of that, RBR makes a ton of money thanks to the budget cap. They would probably spend close to 9 figures on marketing in F1 annually if they didn’t own a team. Instead, they get even more marketing value from it and make money on the team thanks to the budget cap. 
 

The only thing I could see them doing is selling VCARB and ditching their powertrains department and being a customer team, because the powertrains are a huge money pit and they don’t get much additional marketing gain from VCARB. But I would be shocked if they got rid of RBR. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, PGFrog said:

Yes,  I think I read the are worth between $35-40 billion so the side venture of a F-1 racing team is pretty much a toy and more practical  than say, buying high school offensive tackles.  

Yeah they're def loaded af. What I was getting at there was that Albon is also Thai, so they might see considerable marketing value in reacquiring him and marketing accordingly. But maybe not, as that market is probably not a huge concern for them.

Posted
9 hours ago, faps said:

If Red Bull was running Lawson and Yuki from the start this season they'd probably be last in the constructors, or at least fighting with Alpine for last place. That is Horner's fault.

Man, I really have a tough time putting blame on Horner for the current car being so shitty that only a fucking wizard can make it competitive. Honest question: how much of the engineering side is a team principle overseeing/directing? Though, obviously, someone's head has to roll.

But, yeah, the constant drama around the second seat has to fall on him. Their driver development used to be the envy of the grid. 6(?) of the current drivers on the grid came up through VCarb/Alpha Tauri. And now they're resigned to just let Yuki drive around the track with the rear markers for shits and giggles. Horner has either been too ruthless/impatient (Albon/Gasly), or, ironically, too sentimental (giving Danny what's supposed to be a development seat when they could have instead used it to  properly assess Lawson).

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Posted
21 hours ago, PGFrog said:

First, losing Yuki is an issue?  He has scored 155 fewer points than Max and Yuki has only scored in 4 of 10 races with Red Bull.  Heck 3 of his 10 points were scored with RBR. 

Second,  even if they sign George to replace Max, none of that is going to matter is they don't have a competitive car and right now who knows what they will roll out with the new regs, change in leadership, change in design, and the new power unit.  

Consider that outside of drivers for the big 4 teams, there are 5 other drivers who drive for other teams that have scored more points than Alonso for Aston.  

 

I think it's pretty clear Yuki.is a competent midfield driver, and he's the best driver in that second seat last year 

Genuinely don't think anyone in their development program is a better driver in that seat next year either.

20 hours ago, PGFrog said:

A friend posed an interesting question this morning.  

Remove team politics from the equation and work under the premise that no team has any drivers under contract for next season,  if you were Max, and could go to any team that you wanted next season and be their lead driver which team?

Then it becomes a car question, and one is comically better than anyone else on the grid right now.

9 hours ago, aggie08 said:

Man, I really have a tough time putting blame on Horner for the current car being so shitty that only a fucking wizard can make it competitive. Honest question: how much of the engineering side is a team principle overseeing/directing? Though, obviously, someone's head has to roll.

But, yeah, the constant drama around the second seat has to fall on him. Their driver development used to be the envy of the grid. 6(?) of the current drivers on the grid came up through VCarb/Alpha Tauri. And now they're resigned to just let Yuki drive around the track with the rear markers for shits and giggles. Horner has either been too ruthless/impatient (Albon/Gasly), or, ironically, too sentimental (giving Danny what's supposed to be a development seat when they could have instead used it to  properly assess Lawson).

It's ultimately his fault as CEO but an incredible amount of the fault lies with their vaunted junior program developing very few drivers over the last say 5 years.

Here's the drivers the last ~ten seasons for junior team

Isak Hadjar

Danny Ric 

Lawson

Yuki

Nyck de Vryes

Pierre Gasly

Daniel Kvyat 

Alex Albon

Brendon Hartley

Carlos Sainz left in 2017

Max last drove for them in 2016

 

Marko really has done a fucking terrible job at developing top f1 drivers who stick around RBR.

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, kevwun said:

Probably because he spent most of his time talking shit about Horner to them.

The situation with Max reminds me of a couple of sales offices that I have worked in where there is a dominant sales person whose presence and the way the company allowed them to operate and monopolize time and resources made it impossible for there ever to be more highly productive salesman in those offices. 

If I recall correctly, when Seb was on his run with Red Bull where he won the 4 straight titles Mark Webber finished 3rd 2-3 times so there wasn't this huge disparity in performance. 

During the early stages of Max's career when it was Danny and Max they were close to each other and would have most likely placed even higher if that hadn't had a few wrecks between themselves.

We haven't seen this big gap between the performance of the first Red Bull car and the second car until the last few seasons so why is that happening?

Have things gotten so focused on supporting Max? Are things that toxic inside the team? Were Webber and Danny just better drivers than Alex, Pierre, Sergio, Yuki, etc....? 

Posted (edited)

I think Newey's original design for this rule set was really great, but maybe they were close to the limit of how much faster it could be made to go especially when he wasn't the one working on it anymore.  As a result they got desperate and started tailoring it even more to Max's ability because it was the only way to get any more speed out of it.  It got undriveable for everyone else as a result because they aren't an all-time talent.

Edited by kevwun
Posted
8 minutes ago, kevwun said:

I think Newey's original design for this rule set was really great, but maybe they were close to the limit of how much faster it could be made to go especially when he wasn't the one working on it anymore.  As a result they got desperate and started tailoring it even more to Max's ability because it was the only way to get any more speed out of it.  It got undriveable for everyone else as a result because they aren't an all-time talent.

Newey has said that when he designs a car he took into consideration that styles and preferences of the lead driver to tailor the car to their ability.

Curious if they would go send Lance outside to play whenever the "adults" at Aston talk about the car for 2026. 

 

Posted

I'm sure he did, but Checo was still able to drive it very well for the first while.  It wasn't until last season where it got to the point that he couldn't handle it anymore.

Posted
34 minutes ago, kevwun said:

I'm sure he did, but Checo was still able to drive it very well for the first while.  It wasn't until last season where it got to the point that he couldn't handle it anymore.

Your right, Checo finished I think 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and then farther back last year. 

How much is it crap inside the team? How much of it is the loss of brain power as just off the top of my head:

Newey - Aston

Marshall - McLaren

Wheatley - Audi

Fallows - Aston

Courtney - McLaren

I am sure there are others I have forgotten, but looking at that list there are some huge losses to replace and I am sure Horner fighting with Marko didn't help the environment.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/the-key-staff-who-quit-red-bull-horner-pushed-out-after-mass-exodus/

 

 

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Posted
49 minutes ago, PGFrog said:

Newey has said that when he designs a car he took into consideration that styles and preferences of the lead driver to tailor the car to their ability.

Curious if they would go send Lance outside to play whenever the "adults" at Aston talk about the car for 2026. 

 

Formula 1 No GIF by Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team

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