Tag: Red Bull

Bahrain GP Qualifying: Verstappen takes pole, Ferrari not far behind

A tight qualy saw the reigning champion place first yet again, but the pace of the Ferraris could be something to watch on Saturday.

Our first qualifying session of 2024 has concluded, and the reigning champion of the last three years is starting right where he left off.

It was once again Max Verstappen at the top of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday, turning in a Q3 time of 1:29.179 to take pole position. He’ll start ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes’ George Russell at the top of the grid.

It was Ferrari who topped Q1 and Q2, however. It was Carlos Sainz who topped Q1, a session that spelled disaster for the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, who finished 19th and 20th, respectively. The Kick Saubers of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were also eliminated in Q1, while the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton barely survived in 10th to move on to Q2.

Leclerc finished first in a Q2 session that ended up being a nail-biter for the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who finished ninth and 10th — they’d end up placing seventh and eighth in Q3. Nico Hulkenberg of Haas had an impressive lap to place sixth in Q2 and he ended up 10th in Q3, starting in a points place on the grid Saturday.

In the end, though, it was Verstappen who took the crown. He ended up 0.228 seconds ahead of Leclerc in P2 and 0.306 seconds ahead of Russell in P3, making it a close qualy. Verstappen’s teammate in Sergio Perez didn’t perform as admirably, finishing fifth behind Sainz.

Here are how the full qualifying results from Bahrain shaped out for the first race of 2024:

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Leclerc says Ferrari ready for fine-tuning; Perez sees gap closing

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari will start fine-tuning its car on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain after the team set the pace on day two. Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz went below the 1m30s mark on Thursday afternoon to lead Red Bull’s …

Charles Leclerc says Ferrari will start fine-tuning its car on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain after the team set the pace on day two.

Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz went below the 1m30s mark on Thursday afternoon to lead Red Bull’s Sergio Perez by three quarters of a second, with Leclerc having also been quickest in the morning session. The Monegasque says he was able to complete his run plan by staying in the car for an extra spell after an early lunch break, and believes Ferrari is making good progress with its car.

“All the answers [were achieved] because at the end we went through all our program, which is a good thing,” Leclerc said. “We have done big changes on the car and that’s what we were focusing on for these first two days. Tomorrow we will go and fine-tune a little bit more and go into the details.

“The first two days went well; however, let’s be careful because saying that the first two days went well doesn’t mean anything in terms of competitiveness, so we need to wait and see for that. My initial feeling is Red Bull remains the reference and ahead for now.”

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Despite conforming with the general paddock consensus that Red Bull has maintained its advantage, Leclerc also believes the test won’t show the full potential from any team.

“I think the first performance runs we’ll be seeing is in qualifying next week,” he said, “but yeah, every day you are trying to get a little bit more out of the car. Tomorrow is the last day, so hopefully center the car a bit more in terms of setup to where we think it’s the best and we’ll fine-tune it in order to be ready for next week.”

Sergio Perez reckons rivals are over-estimating the performance advantage of his Red Bull RB20 but admits the full picture has yet to come into focus. Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images

From a Red Bull perspective, Perez insists the gaps are smaller than rivals are claiming, but believes a clearer picture will emerge on the final day of running.

“I don’t really think that we’ve had much of a look in that regard,” Perez said. “I believe that things are a lot closer than we are thinking, definitely, but at the moment we’re basically focusing on our job, we’ve been so busy with our program. Tomorrow there will be a bit more of an idea, but I think we will find out next Sunday.”

Formula 1 Testing: Red Bull, Verstappen dominate field in Bahrain Wednesday

It’s just testing, of course, but the first look of the 2024 F1 season has Red Bull on top by a large margin.

It’s important to remember that Formula 1 testing is just testing. That being said, Red Bull and Max Verstappen made sure to sweep the field anyway on the first day of testing in Bahrain on Wednesday.

While it’s hard to tell exactly what fuel loads teams are running, whether they are on a fast lap or a slow lap or trying to figure out specific aspects of the car (among a slew of other things), Verstappen cleared the rest of the grid during testing by running the most laps of any driver (143) and finishing 1.140 seconds clear of the second-place Lando Norris. The display comes after Red Bull put out a drastically different car design heading into the season, so teams will certainly be on watch after Verstappen’s dominant 2023 campaign.

Not every driver participated in testing. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton did not run on Wednesday, but they’re set to run on Thursday.

Haas ran the most laps with 144 on the day (though both drivers finished at the bottom of the standings). Williams ran the least amount of laps, with just 61 between Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant.

Here’s what the order for Bahrain testing looked like after Day 1:

  1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull, 143 laps) [1:31.334]
  2. Lando Norris (McLaren, 73 laps) [1:32.484]
  3. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari, 69 laps) [1:32.584]
  4. Daniel Ricciardo (Visa Cashapp RB, 52 laps) [1:32.599]
  5. Pierre Gasly (Alpine, 61 laps) [1:32.805]
  6. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin, 54 laps) [1:33.007]
  7. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari, 64 laps) [1:33.247]
  8. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin, 77 laps) [1:33.385]
  9. Oscar Piastri (McLaren, 57 laps) [1:33.658]
  10. Zhou Guanyu (Kick Sauber, 63 laps) [1:33.871]
  11. Logan Sargeant (Williams, 21 laps) [1:33.882]
  12. George Russell (Mercedes, 112 laps) [1:34.109]
  13. Yuki Tsunoda (Visa Cashapp RB, 64 laps) [1:34.136]
  14. Valtteri Bottas (Kick Sauber, 68 laps) [1:34.431]
  15. Alexander Albon (Williams, 40 laps) [1:34.587]
  16. Esteban Ocon (Alpine, 60 laps) [1:34.677]
  17. Kevin Magnussen (Haas, 66 laps) [1:35.692]
  18. Nico Hulkenberg (Haas, 82 laps) [1:35.906]

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Horner set for Red Bull hearing on Friday

Christian Horner is set for a hearing into his conduct as part of Red Bull’s investigation at the end of this week. The team principal is the subject of an independent investigation – launched by Red Bull Racing’s parent company – into alleged …

Christian Horner is set for a hearing into his conduct as part of Red Bull’s investigation at the end of this week.

The team principal is the subject of an independent investigation – launched by Red Bull Racing’s parent company – into alleged inappropriate behaviour. Details of the behaviour in question have not been confirmed.

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RACER understands the investigation has been ongoing for a number of days but has yet to see Horner spoken to directly on the matter. That hearing is now due to take place on Friday, with Horner continuing his duties as team principal as normal while the investigation is being carried out.

Horner denies the allegations, and at this stage it’s not clear when any conclusions will be drawn and next steps outlined.

In a statement confirming the investigation on Monday, Red Bull GmbH said it “takes these matters extremely seriously and the investigation will be completed as soon as practically possible”.

Red Bull will launch its 2024 car on February 15 in Milton Keynes, while its junior team does so this coming Thursday in Las Vegas. Pre-season testing for the new Formula 1 season begins in 15 days, ahead of the opening race in Bahrain on March.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner under investigation for misconduct

Horner is currently being investigated by Red Bull through an external body for what is described as “inappropriate behavior” toward a female employee.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner is under investigation for “inappropriate behavior”, according to multiple sources.

Horner is being investigated by Red Bull — the energy drink maker that serves as a parent company for the racing team — over allegations of misconduct toward a female employee. While the nature of the allegations remain unknown at the time of writing, the Associated Press reported Monday that the allegations relate to his “aggressive management style.”

Horner himself said simply to Dutch publication De Telegraaf that he “completely” denies the claims from the allegations. Red Bull put out a statement in reference to the investigation, which reads thus:

“After being made aware of certain recent allegations, the company launched an independent investigation. This process, which is already underway, is being carried out by an external specialist barrister. The company takes these matters extremely seriously and the investigation will be completed as soon as practically possible. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”

As it stands, Horner remains the team principal for Red Bull Racing while the investigation goes on. Despite that, though, British newspaper The Times wrote Monday that Horner’s job status is “under serious threat” with the allegations.

The Formula 1 season is set to get underway on Feb. 21 with testing — Red Bull Racing is set to launch their car before then on Feb. 15.

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Red Bull to start building new wind tunnel in 2024

Construction on Red Bull’s new wind tunnel will get underway in 2024 following a change in location as the team looks to replace its current “Cold War relic”. Red Bull currently uses a wind tunnel near Bedford – over 20 miles from its factory in …

Construction on Red Bull’s new wind tunnel will get underway in 2024 following a change in location as the team looks to replace its current “Cold War relic”.

Red Bull currently uses a wind tunnel near Bedford – over 20 miles from its factory in Milton Keynes – that is part of a former aircraft research site that was active between 1946 and 1994. Given the technology involved with new wind tunnels and changes to plans to ban their use in the Formula 1 regulations, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says work will start on a new tunnel next year.

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“A quirk of the regulations with wind tunnels being a thing of the future by all accounts, we’ve had to go with the times and invest in a new wind tunnel,” Horner said. “Construction will start during the course of 2024.

“You don’t want to introduce it in-season, you have to nominate a tunnel for the year, so it will be probably to do the ’27 car in.”

Horner says the new wind tunnel will still be on-site in Milton Keynes despite making a change to planning applications over the past year, but that it will not delay the facility being completed in 2026.

With Red Bull having served a penalty for breaching the cost cap in 2022 that involved restricted wind tunnel time, Horner says the way the team has handled that limitation should be acknowledged given the deficit he believes the current wind tunnel provides.

“Well our allowance increased a bit in October, as we’d served the penalty, so it allowed 7% more time. But again, that’s what, 8% less than any other competitor. That’s just the way these regulations are.

“And particularly with the wind tunnel that we have, which is a Cold War relic, and not particularly efficient, particularly in cold weather – which you tend to get a bit of in the UK – we have to be very, very selective. That’s where the team have done brilliantly well of really being selective of where we channel our development.”

Crawford suggests he’s been moved up too fast as Red Bull exit confirmed

Jak Crawford has left the Red Bull junior team setup and suggests he was pushed through the ranks too quickly, as he maps out his updated path towards Formula 1. The American joined Red Bull in 2020 and completed one year in German and Italian …

Jak Crawford has left the Red Bull junior team setup and suggests he was pushed through the ranks too quickly, as he maps out his updated path towards Formula 1.

The American joined Red Bull in 2020 and completed one year in German and Italian Formula 4 before moving up to Formula 3 for two years. Promoted to Formula 2 this season, Crawford has one win and one pole position as well as four further podiums, but sits 11th in the championship with one round remaining.

He has now confirmed he won’t be with Red Bull in 2024, and in announcing his departure, the press release suggested the way Crawford was moved up rapidly and has never spent consecutive seasons with the same team was not beneficial to his development.

“Once he was moved early to F3, it became nearly impossible to slow his upward progress inside of the Red Bull junior program,” the release stated. “While the 2023 season has seen rapid acclimatization to the incredibly competitive F2 landscape that has included, to date, a race victory, a handful of podiums and a pole position, it could be argued that the debuts in both F3 and F2 each came one year too early.”

Quotes attributed to Crawford himself say he will now try and take a more patient approach to gaining experience, with a 2024 seat in F2 already agreed.

“We are thankful for the Red Bull funding for four years, and honestly, we could not have done much of it without their substantial support,” said Crawford. “We were wanting to make key decisions and we let them know mid-year. After that, they didn’t pick up my fifth and final year, so we are in control now. I truly appreciate everyone at Red Bull, especially Rocky (Guillaume Rocquelin). I really enjoyed the last two years with him at the factory.

“Everyone has a different path, but mine has been to be moved up fast and to a different team every year. In two years, I will be only 20 years old, so we are going to slow it down and work a more thoughtful plan. That is all I can say about our plans at this point in time. Again, I am grateful for Red Bull for four years of support.”

Every F1 special livery for the Las Vegas Grand Prix

F1 cars will be set to dazzle under the Las Vegas lights with these unique liveries.

There’s a certain air about Sin City, and Formula 1 team made sure to bring the paint jobs to match.

Of the ten F1 teams on the grid, six are bringing a special livery to commemorate F1’s debut in Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Aston Martin, Mercedes, Haas and McLaren didn’t participate, but everyone else did and they represent the glitz and glam that comes with Las Vegas. Some teams, such ass AlphaTauri, plan to run their liveries for another race after Las Vegas.

Check out every team’s new livery they’re all set to run under the Vegas lights:

Red Bull says Perez seat not tied to P2 in drivers’ standings

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner insists Sergio Perez’s seat on the team for 2024 is not dependent on him beating Lewis Hamilton to second place in the drivers’ championship. Perez retired from his home grand prix in Mexico City on …

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner insists Sergio Perez’s seat on the team for 2024 is not dependent on him beating Lewis Hamilton to second place in the drivers’ championship.

Perez retired from his home grand prix in Mexico City on Sunday and heads to this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix with a 20-point advantage over Hamilton after the latter finished second with the fastest lap. After seeing the gap between the two close and with Red Bull chasing its first one-two in the drivers’ standings, Horner says there’s no automatic trigger regarding Perez’s future based on his finishing position.

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“No, it’s not as binary as that,” Horner said. “You’ve got to look at the circumstances and so on. Checo has an agreement with us for next year, and that’s our intention — for him to be in the car in 2024. We’ll give him all the support that we can so that he finishes second. There’s no prerequisite that if he doesn’t finish second, you’re out.

“He’s got three races now to convert that second place, there’s 20 points between him and Lewis. He’s had some misfortune, he’s had some issues. But we still believe he can do it between now and the end of the year.”

Horner says one of the ways Perez has impressed Red Bull is by coming through similar tough spells in the past to deliver strong results.

“He’s a tough operator. That’s why he’s in the car, because mentally, he’s always been able to bounce back. He’ll brush himself down and he’ll turn it into motivation. Sprint race in Brazil, Las Vegas a street circuit — he’s always run well at street circuits. Abu Dhabi, he’s always been competitive there as well. He’ll have the full support of the team to try and achieve something that we’ve not done before.”

Horner also feels special motivation for the upcoming Brazilian race after losing out to Mercedes there last year.

George Russell’s win at Interlagos in 2022 was the only time Red Bull was beaten between Charles Leclerc’s victory at last season’s Austrian Grand Prix and Carlos Sainz’s win in Singapore this year. The Mercedes result marks the only non-Red Bull win in that run of 25 races, and Horner expects another challenge in Brazil this season.

“They’ve (Mercedes) been competitive on race runs (in Mexico). Austin’s difficult to judge because of what happened. We expect them to be competitive in Brazil for sure. Brazil for us is a scratch unitched from last year when we felt we didn’t get the setup quite right. So we’ll try and put that right this year.”

Maximum stint lengths ‘not ideal for us’ – Verstappen

Max Verstappen believes Red Bull came under more pressure from McLaren than it normally would have in the Qatar Grand Prix due to the maximum stint lengths imposed. Pirelli and the FIA opted to mandate a new set of tires could do no more than 18 …

Max Verstappen believes Red Bull came under more pressure from McLaren than it normally would have in the Qatar Grand Prix due to the maximum stint lengths imposed.

Pirelli and the FIA opted to mandate a new set of tires could do no more than 18 laps due to concerns over damage to the construction caused by severe curbs at Lusail, essentially forcing at least a three-stop race. That meant drivers had to push throughout stints and not worry about managing tires as they usually would, negating one of Red Bull’s strengths as the two McLarens crossed the line just five seconds behind him.

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“I think what really made my race was that first stint, where I think we were quite strong and good on the tires,” Verstappen said. “After that, because we had a bit of a tire offset, compared to the McLaren, I could drive a bit longer on most of the sets, which maybe in some places, then cost me a bit on the out-lap and stuff. So then sometimes the gap looked a bit closer than it should have been.

“Then on the hard tire, I lost quite a bit of time in the last two, three laps because I had to get through some traffic. And then I had a slow stop as well at the end. So, then they were very close behind me. But overall they have been really quick all weekend. So, I think especially with the fuel coming out, it looked like they were again picking up more and more pace, compared to me.

“Plus, of course, that three stop that was mandatory I think was not ideal for us, personally, because our car is good on tires. So when you need to do longer stints because that’s the fastest way around here, it would have probably been a bit better. But it was same for everyone at the end that we had to do those stops. We had to deal with that.

“It made it also probably a bit harder to drive. We had to push quite hard out there, and as you could see after the race a lot of people are quite tired.”

However, Verstappen said the fact that the race situation hurt Red Bull a little shouldn’t detract from the gains being made from McLaren after Oscar Piastri won the Sprint on Saturday.

“Our trend is normally long stints and looking after our tires. This didn’t work for us, the stints were too limited, but I do think at one point my engineer told me to speed up a bit and we always had the pace to speed up.

“I just have to re-watch the race a little bit to understand a bit more what was going on behind me. I do think we had a bit more pace in hand if we really needed it but nevertheless, I don’t want to take anything away from McLaren. They’ve been doing a great job and from us, we see that they are getting closer and closer. So we have to try and of course maintain a bit of a gap.”