I had no idea which way it could go after Saturday. I thought the softer tyres would last 10 laps but had no idea about the middle stints. Or that the harder tyre would degrade so quick.

Maybe RBR needs to hire Alfisti. He seemed to be pretty emphatic about it. All season Redbull have been caught out, because it seems they still haven't realised that pitting first this year is always better. Any kind of wet race or lottery situation where you have to react.. how is it possible to put faith in Redbull?

Or maybe they could just copy what McLaren do. Turkey was amazing in terms of strategy but there was also some luck.

It's true that it's not a good race car. In the past you could get away with it, this year everything is so close. You need every possible advantage in your corner. The pace is ok (not dominant but about even) but everything else about it is tough. Overtaking is always so much harder when your advantage is mid corner speed rather then top speed.

The car doesn't like dirty air, doesn't have good straight line speed, agree also about the braking it's been really obvious in the last two races. It has good speed in both medium and fast corners (where as last season was more about the fast corners only). Excellent traction.

Can't have everything I guess. They improved alot from last year to this year. Some didn't expect them to go for the title this year. But Ferrari and McLaren are stiff opposition. Redbull are noobs in comparison experience wise. But they are still much better off then Brawn/Merc are. Everyone last year was talking about Brawn's excellence and innovative diffuser blah blah blah. It was a one trick pony.

I am still livid about Turkey, can't believe I was able to post a reasonably calm post about Redbull.

The problem is at the top of the heap. DM wants Vettel's title so as Marko.
Strategy on second car was heavily compromised, but the reason may NOT be down to the strategist.
Any strategist MUST follow the commando of the top, Marko who dictates how the strategy must be implemented.

I do think that Horner has done a good job, but that is to give feeling that Red Bull is a fun loving racing team with no championship order. Quite clearly Red Bull's program has aim to crown their own breed racer, so that is the reason of all fuss, that is where Horner fails to place MW on top of the heap.

Shame, I do like Vettel, but he is still blue, not ready for the championship so far as the race panned out. Instead, Webber is loud and clear running at his best and will achieve the WDC if he were to given calls. The choice must be made by the racing team, but not by a adviser, that is what I do think.

In this line of thnking, replacing Horner may bring worse leader to RedBull.

its also why ferrari were happiest with an enferred number 1. it stopped all the internal competition that ultimately wasted energy and meant the focus on beating the rest of the grid was lost.

you can applaud letting your drivers fight (sort of how mclaren do it cause it was not team orders that they told both drivers to conserve fuel at all) but it does produce suboptimal team results. vis a vis alonso/hamilton and now these two.

it must be very tiring for the principles to try and keep things contained as in after turkey and the paronoia that must be rampant.

Mark has, on numerous occasions, backed DM up and said he is a very fair man. Again, if you truely believe that DM, and the rest of Red Bull, are out to get Mark and undermine him, then clearly you are disagreeing with Mark himself and as someone else mentioned, you are insulting his intelligence, his sense of dignity and basic integrity, all of which I think Mark has abundance of.

Besides the personnel for each driver's garage for obvious reasons, I think the only person in Red Bull who is entirely biased and outwardly so is Helmut Marko. One brush does should not be used to tarnish the entire team.

No I do not insult his intelligence. Quite opposite. Mark's operation has been till today clean and sharp, I love it.

Mark said himself that DM has his opinion in the past, but he does not know what exactly DM thinks all the time. Mark knows that everyone has one opinion. And DM is a fair man. None of these contradicts each other. Yet Marko who works for DM simply reflects Red Bull's drover program preference and does not share DM's fairness. In combination of these two the problem at the garage is fixed on the wall, for both psychologically as well as strategy wise.

What is incredible of Mark's performance is coming from his tough mind, he can negates all bad influences from these mind games. What is even more impressive is that his speed currently is way quicker than any strategy can make influence on. So at this point of time, Mark is the best on the track driving the best car.

Horner has been weaving the writing on wall differently than how Marko wanted. Horner out smart Marko in all aspects. Horner and managed well, but his double agenda seems to get aught up by the incident in Turky. Replaing Horner can be tricky.

I do think that it is potentially very dangerous to keep Horner as his personal goal should be to achieve WDC/WCC no matter which driver does that.

I think DM's a fair man and I very much doubt there's any direction from him to favour Vettel over Webber. Guaranteed he has told Helmut Marko to make the driver development program a success, though, and Vettel's currently top dog from that program.

I have no faith at all that Marko wants a fair fight. It's pretty clear from his history of comments about Mark and Seb that he wants Seb to dominate Mark, and thereby give him what he's been asked to deliver by DM. If Marko can find a way to disadvantage Mark without it being obvious to everyone, then he will. He practically admitted as much after Turkey.

Agreed, I've never seen anything to suggest that DM is anything but fair, and he seems reasonably hands off anyway. I don't think anyone could deny that its Marko who is the problem and has been for years.

The only thing you could pin on DM is that he is pressuring Marko to justify the enormous investment he's made in the driver development program, as he has every right to IMO.

The irony of the predicament Marko has created for himself though is that in his attempts to promote his driving academy star, actually, what he is doing is de-valuing Seb as a product. We have seen the stigma of winning championships under 1-2 driver arrangements with Schumacher, so Marko's play should really be to remain, or appear to remain, as impartial as possible, otherwise Seb's victories will come across as rather hollow.

In the end I doubt there is the level of team favouritism at play as some here suggest, and if you demonstrate that you dont believe Mark with the constant paranoid innuendo, then as I have noted, it really is an attack on the man's intelligence and character.

Pretty well sums it up, there is no conspiracy, I understand the teams natural gyration to Vettel, it happened with a lot of previous young drivers in the past. Everything I have read with regards to some sort of preference has no solid basis and is purely conjecture. Marko doesn't improve the situation but I don't think he has as much influence on the day to day operations as some may think, sometimes outspoken but has clearly done a pretty good job for DM over the years.

Adrian did not come to Montreal.
He stayed at home to work on the F-duct.
Will we have it by Valencia?
edit: Valencia is normally not a RedBull suited track.

For the sake of competition I hope Red Bull dont improve any further. We're having a great championship and a working F-duct for Red Bull will just blow everyone else away for the rest of the year

Weren't there rumours not too long ago that Red Bull could be looking at Pat Symonds?

Nobody, unless I'm mistaken, currently has a fully-working F-Duct, like McLaren's.

I wouldn't really agree with that, and actually I think that is what is exasperating the situation which we see now. Vettel is the only real success story of the Red Bull driver program. Its other graduates include Enrique Bernoldi, Christian Klien, Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi - the latter of which is the only one to salvage an F1 career outside of the Red Bull organisation. Some of those guys are decent drivers, but none of them look anything like potential WDCs. I understand that Red Bull has one of the most expensive young driver programs, and they've got very little to show for it. So thats why I think Marko is desperate for Vettel to win the championship and justify his expense sooner than later. Alguersuari and Ricciardo could turn out to be very good, but it'll be a few more years until they are there.

EDIT: Now I've read that through, it occurs to me what a conflict of interest it is to have Marko so involved with Red Bull Racing in the first place. He's at nearly every race with them team...shouldn't he be, I don't know, scouting for new drivers or checking up on the current Red Bull juniors or something? It must be pretty frustrating for Horner, I imagine.

I think thats the majority opinion from motor sports fans looking in,who knows what the actual machinations are,i also think Marko is trying for a bit of the limelight as regards RB's great(& quick) rise to the top of the heap where they were the early Favs. for the championships. From my experience in motor sport the status quo rarely remains the same,one of two things will happen(IMO of course),Marko will back off and leave Horner alone or his ego will take over and the reverse will happen.
In any case its great to see RB going well and i hope it continues.

Depends on the performance criteria and each name listed certainly had the potential given their pedigree, RedBull has interests outside of F1 and the driver program is pretty solid. It would be unreasonable to assume that every driver that makes the step into F1 is going to be of the class of Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso etc etc. The vast majority of drivers that enter the sport do not make it, the program ensures product exposure at junior levels and gives somewhat more control over a drivers future when you do find the rare gems amongst the riff raff. There are holistic benifits in running such programs not necessarily reflected through race/championship wins. Having Marko at the races facilitates more than just having him there for the sake of it, keeping abreast of the current factors a driver needs to overcome to be successful today informs characteristics you look for in a driver of the future. I think the people in this business aside from the dramatized snippets in the news have a much more mature outlook on all facets of racing than the rather outlandish soap opera theories presented on this board.

"There [Valencia], with the F-duct system we are getting an important part on the car," he (Vettel) told Germany's Auto Bild Motorsport. "Our technical chief Adrian Newey did not come to Canada in order to put the finishing touches on the new system at the factory."

Yes, it's all over the media that the F-duct will be used in Valencia.

Let's hope it's an improvement on it's incarnation in Turkey.

It's interesting that they seemed to have fast-tracked it. Last I heard, only a week or two ago, it was supposed to be held back until Hockenheim.

Desperation, or perhaps a breakthrough?

Just because they will have it in Valencia doesn't mean they will use it in the race.

No amount of improved performance can make up for
@#$% reliability
@#$% race strategy
@#$% pit calls

If as has been suggested CH has been the guiding hand that brought RBR to this point then thats great for him.
Fact remains that in all the time CH has been at the helm they have had the problems i listed above.
With the exception of when RBR had GW and they were actually reliable.

If he does not have the power to makes the necessary changes then he needs to appeal to the people who do.
If he does have the power but has simply failed to resolve them then someone above CH needs to resolve the situation.

RBR reliability is not a new problem and its not an AN problem.
RBR @#$% strategy is not new either and now it is painting the team in a very bad light.
With their utter inability to get it right they are giving people the ammunition to claim team bias.

I find it quite disappointing as a fan of so many of the people in RBR that the team is so very substandard in the areas I mentioned.
They are not just below McLaren and Ferrari they are beating on the door of the back markers when it comes to reliability
and they have everyone on the track beat when it comes to dumb as all hell strategies.

Lets hope the technical team dont get distracted with this and lose their way like Ferrari.

Then why is Renault almost always topping the speed traps?

A source at McLaren has said that the Renault engine was down ~1% in power with respect to the Mercedes. I think I'll take his word over yours.

The speed traps are mostly due to grip, not power. Grip relates to aero efficiency.

As to McLaren, they vociferously do not want RBR to have the Mercedes engine.

As to power outputs, my reference:


The Renault engine would therefor be around 4% down, rather than 1%. I am not sure how much power loss or fuel efficiency losses an engine that has a high mileage suffers from. That also seems to depend on whose engine too.

The Renault engine appears to have good control characteristics (hence it would suit some circuits like Monaco and also would be good in the wet), and it is the most reliable too (Webber went to only his fourth engine for the Canadian GP). It should have been more economical than Mercedes plant also but it appears not to have been according to some expert opinions, but I think it will improve its economy when the F-Duct appears. But to think it is as powerful is hopeful at best.

Next years engine choices have been complicated though by the KERS re-introduction. Off topic I guess, but I had wanted the Cosworth to have been the most powerful engine. But it has not only been down on power, but it has lost power significantly as its been used, which with the current rules is a big disadvantage.

Can you quote the McLaren source? I'd like to read it.

Remember how fast Red Bull became when Newey introduced the DD diffuser.

I'm quiet confident Newey will get it right.

Christian horner needs to stuff it. He got an engine upgrade and still complaining

Do you hear Mclaren or Mercedes crying in the media all the time about "We should be allowed to upgrade our engines because the Renault is more fuel efficient" Or "we should be allowed to upgrade our engines because the Renault engines is very easy to control".

That's what Kubica said btw, that the Renault engine is very easy to control.

Renault has never been the most powerfull engine, but they make up for it in other areas. Even during their peak at 1991-1996, Renault did not produce the most power engines, yet they were regarded as the best

Uhh, it took them 2 attempts to get it right. People seem to forget that.

The Renault engines back then were by far the best. Not the most powerful, sure, but for turbo motors, power did not have much meaning, because while a BMW turbo was sometimes said to be capable of 1400 hp in qualifying, in race form it was much less powerful, and the Renault the best.

Some history from memory (please correct my mistakes): When Renault pulled out of GPs they had committed to not spend money on the F1 engine business. Flavio Briatore who was Team Principle for Benneton bought the broke Ligier team who used the Renault engines - hence Flavio obtained a stock of Renault engines. And through a tricky deal, Flavio arranged for Renault's engine operation in France to continue on via consultancy fees to be paid by a company of Flavio's. Hence Renault were able to continue to develop engines via Flavio payments rather than Renault's. When Renault re-entered F1 Flavio's deal had enabled Renault to re-enter F1 with its own operational engine program. Flavio became in charge of both the Renault F1 car operation and also the F1 French based engine operation. But the wide angled V10 despite winning a couple of times was not aero enough and it was not the best engine. The conventional V8 though was very good.

When recently the FIA homologated the V8s, Renault accepted the homologation and no longer developed their engines. But Ferrari and Mercedes developed their homologated engines under the guise of reliability changes and manufacturing changes. Not developing homologated engines left Renault and others well behind in performance. Renault despite good cooling (which aids aero speed), tight packaging including exhausts (which helps aero), supposed good fuel economy, good control characteristics and reliability, RBR have been keen to get the Mercedes engine, which most think is a lot more powerful than Renault's.

The Renault engine was changed for the first race of this season. Hence the catch up was not effective, since Horners claimed in June the Renault is well down on power. That Reanult whines is due two engine makers in particular developing their engines whiles't other teams did not. Its no wonder customers are upset - they expected homologated engines to stay the same , and they did not. Without the 'catch up" allowed by the FIA and facilitated by whining, the current Renault engine would be hopeless.

That says it all for me. If the Mercedes engine wasn't better than the Renault, Mclaren shouldn't be worried at all about Red Bull getting the same powerplant they have.

Mercedes and McLaren must be idiots to hone the sword of the enemy.

So you agree the engine is better than the Renault? Or else it wouldn't be 'honing' Red Bull's sword at all, right?

Just saying that Red Bull are rightfully a bit frustrated to have such a good car, but an inferior powerplant with nothing they can do about it.

LOL. Both sources are biased but your own anti-McLaren bias shows up again.

Red Bull whines that the Renault is underpowered, though the one who's doing the whining has much to gain from it (ie. Horner). On the other hand, a credible source like a McLaren engineer (who's not public, thus has nothing to gain from revealing information) says that the engine is only down ~1%.

Furthermore, it is well known that the Renault has the best fuel consumption and allows RBR and Renault to start at least 5-10 kg lighter than other cars.

I seriously doubt the Renault is that underpowered considering Red Bull were more than just "able" to follow McLaren on the straights in Montreal.

My anti-Mclaren bias? I really dont think you know what you're saying sometimes. I think maybe you have some insecurity and thus have an overdefensive nature when it comes to anything that somebody says about your team. I mean seriously, I dont know what the hell was anti-Mclaren about my post at all. You can try and 'show me' what was anti-Mclaren about it, but the mere fact that you have to tell me means there was no anti-Mclaren sentiment in the first place, and its just you interpreting it wrong.

And I dont understand what any of the rest of your post has to do with anything. I'm not saying the Renault is a super crappy engine, just that there's likely GOOD reason why Mclaren and Mercedes dont want Red Bull to have their engines. Thats not saying anything bad about Mclaren or Mercedes, its obviously the smart thing to do, but if their engine wasn't better, why would they object?

You're now adding fuel economy to your engineer's opinion? Or did the engineer not mention that basic critical issue? And in what conditions was the power differentials? There's qualifying, race day, track type and also the engine conditions. We don't know about the fuel economy either. People are now saying Renault do not get that expected fuel advantage, one predicted from last year. It's quite possible that Mercedes have improved their fuel economy from last year, isn't it?

Horner also has uniquely accurate information about F1 engines. The reason being, is that the team uses the Ferrari engine as well. Hence when Horner says its 30hp, how much is he lying? I looked for a Renault reply to that Horner statement - which I thought was amazing as the team is supposed to support Renault. I couldn't find one though.

However the desire to get the MB engine for next season may not be because of this year's engine power. It could be because of MB's KERS system, which is very very good. But despite that factor, I tend to agree with Horner that the engine is down on power compared to the MB unit. It might have some other advantages though, but I suspect fuel economy is not much of a benefit either. If it was I'd have expected much better tyre wear ... better aero, better engine control and lower weight should improve tyre wear IMO. Of course we'll never know. But then we could all claim the Cosworth is the best engine.

We know at the end of lasty year Toyota (the weakest engine) was 18bhp down on the Mercedes (the strongest). So either Horner is lieing (most probably he made the figure up in the heat of the moment) - or the Mercedes has gaind an additional 12 bhp (unlightly) - or the renault has lost 12+ bhp (even more unlightly).

Ross Brawn said the reason that Mercedes dont want to supply engines to an additional team is thats it's already a stretch with 3 teams considdering they had a large workforce layoff.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/84243

Cosworth supply 4 teams, surely Mercedes could do the same?

Renault engine was fastest in the speed traps at Canada. Mercedes was slow and they have F-Duct.

In China long straight Renault was the fastest in speed trap also. They seem to be quickest in all high speed traps.

The Renault engine is really good now, if not one of the best in F1.

Thats clearly BS as they were willing to do it but Mac excercised thier veto.

Maybe Cosworth has a bigger workforce?

Well Ross is the one saing it there... Maybe Mac convinced him that it would be a stretch for Mercedes?

IMHO it's simply a face saving excuse.

Well I think there are a lot of lies in t e air

I dont believe Horner that the Renault is 30bhp (4%) down in the slightest - it would be so noticable in the races with redbull and renault 1% is far more beleveable and fits all the other (non horner) reports - but I also dont believe that Mercedes couldnt supply Redbull if they really wanted.

I agree.

I'm sure there were reports last year that the Merc board wanted to extend their engine supply, but that was when Mac used their veto to prevent RB getting them, and since then Merc have bought Brawn and now would not want to help another front running team.

For 2010, maybe, but you should not forget for 2010 the works Mercedes had their own aims too.

But we're talking abot "for 2011" here, right?

Don't blame McLaren without any proof.

Do you think the works Mercedes team want to be their own enemy helping Red Bull?

That's enough shame they are beaten by their English customer...

the master tactician that ross brawn is - he would never want to give his engine to RBR.

the other thing that renault seem to have an advantage over all others is the cooling requirements. look how tight that rbr rear end is - they would have to go fatter if they want a merc unit which would cost downforce and performance.

Try reading first before you start rolling your eyes.

Sean, can you please hook any URL with this that supports McLaren having a problem RBR racing the same engine? Because the last thing i heared it was upto Merdeces RBR not having the engines.

First of all it's not only Horner, Newey mentioned engine disadvantage cost them around 0,3s per lap (AMuS (?)).
You can believe anything you want, but Horner and Newey are people who directly work with Renault engines. They said it publically and if it wasn't true someone (Mercedes, McLaren, Renault, journalists) would be very happy to correct them. Nothing like that happened. The McLaren and Mercedes are not no keen to do that partially because that would mean to admit that Red Bull did better job with a chasis. All we will ever get is vague statements that power is difficult to measure and there are other factors, blah, blah (Brawn).
What other non Horner reports are you talking about? Name them, please. I know about one: AMuS (?) report from last year, quoted among others by Allen. Was it 15 HP or something? Where is this 1% figure coming from?



This is very interesting statement and it's a further albeit indirect proof that Merc engine is superior. Brawn basically warned Mercedes (Germany) not to supply their direct competitor Red Bull. It's funny how he refers to Mercedes as "we", yet he feels the need to go public with it. Was he thinking loudly or Mercedes (Germany) at least considered Red Bull deal?
It was quickly followed by Haug's statement that 4th engine deal is unlikely (KERS was the excuse, rubbish excuse if you ask me).
What McLaren and Mercedes (F1 team) are saying is that we don't know which engine is the best but under no circumstances should Mercedes (Germany) supply Red Bull. On the simplest logic level it says it all.



It is not a direct reply but there was an interview with Remi Taffin (head of engines operations at Renault) in Autohebdo.fr where he talks about the engine. Brawn was very happy to mention it (link somewhere above). I can't find it right now, some quotes from the interview are here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...que&prev=_t
Horner statement may seem amazing (with Renault being a partner) but the main reason for it was to put pressure on FIA/Fota to force some sort of "unfreeze" of engine development. It didn't work but at least they tried

McLaren's veto last year.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2009/11/anal...rmance-in-2009/




The 1% was Andy on the McLaren Site.

In a seperate repots (i think it was TS) toyota was confirmed as the least powerful.

So 30 bhp is way over estimaded IMO