Red Bull Racing are pulling out the stops in a desperate attempt to claim their seventh constructors’ F1 championship. In the all time list they sit behind Lotus (7), Mercedes (8), McLaren (8) and Ferrari (16) and for the team their focus is not purely on Verstappen’s fourth championship but on the prize money on offer in the constructors’ and the pride of reeling Mercedes lead in by one.

Mercedes first foray into Formula One ended in 1955 when following the disaster for the brand at Le Mans where one of their cars was launched into the crowd killing the driver, 83 spectators and injuring 160 more. Mercedes returned to F1 in 2010 buying the Brawn GP team who were there world champions and by 2014 they had built a mighty operation both at Brackley and Brixton.

What followed created F1 history as the silver arrows team from that season claimed eight consecutive constructor world titles. When Max won his first drivers’ championship in 2021, the lacklustre performances from Sergio Perez meant Mercedes Valtteri Bottas was the better number two driver amongst the two teams, so it was Mercedes who went on to claim the team championship that year.

 

 

 

The difference a year makes

This time last season Max and Red. Bull had wrapped up other championships and while Verstappen’s 52 point lead over Lando Norris looks challenging for McLaren to overcome, Red Bull find themselves 41 points behind the papaya liveried team with six rounds of the year remaining.

Whilst Max remains favourite over Norris, just one DNF for the world champion would change the picture entirely. COTA was also a happy hunting ground for Verstappen last year with him claiming pole in the Sprint Shootout, the Sprint and Grand Prix win, only in Grand Prix qualifying was Max not close to the front row of the grid as he qualified P6. but came through to win the race.

FIA withdraw from Verstappen confrontation

 

 

McLaren’s ‘soft under belly’

For all the plaudits the McLaren team are receiving there has been evidence the F1 outfit are lacking in ‘match toughness’ when it comes to duking it out for championships. Norris 42 point deficit to Verstappen would have been just 32 had the team issued team orders in Monza and Hungary.

The McLaren team’s efforts to keep both drivers happy is not the formula for success in a sport which is a ruthless in terms of competition as it gets. Oscar Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard, now reveals during the break there has been a ‘sit down’ in Woking to discuss favouring Lando Norris with now six races to go this year.

Whilst on recent form, McLaren are favourites for at least the team championship, this is not the feeling within the McLaren camp. “I know you said we’re sitting pretty in the Constructors’ Championship. It never feels like that on the inside,” Stallard revealed on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

With Ferrari and Mercedes having won recent Grand Prix, Stalled sums up, “So we’ve got a lot of work to do just to sew that up.”

Schumacher: “I wasn’t good enough”

 

 

 

Piastri’s engineer explains

A number of F1 pundits and ex-drivers like Jenson Button believe the team needs to be stronger in terms of issuing team orders something team boss Andreas Stella admitted last time out in Singapore. Stalled explains how the conversation went with Oscar Piastri about helping his team mate to this years championship.

“As a team, we want to win both [titles], and the team includes both drivers. The other thing I would say, if you’re a driver who thinks you’re going to win Drivers’ Championships, you want to be in a team that will support you to do that. If you are not prepared to help the team achieve that when it’s the other guy, how do you expect a team to treat you when it’s you the next time?” 

Whilst a reasonably sounding solution, this is not the way Fomrula One drivers are wired. Should your team mate become world champion, the reality is you’re in the same car and should therefore have had a similar opportunity.

Stallard refers to F1 history, where two drivers in the same team missed out on a drivers championship by one point. Them “ripping strips off for the whole season, and then at the end of it Kimi Räikkönen wins,” recalls Stallard of the McLaren battle in 2007 between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.

Schumacher back in F1: A ‘real’ situation

 

 

 

McLaren yet to prove team orders

“I think that from that point of view, Oscar has been very, very positive in his support for the team and willingness to support the team in what needs to happen. He’s looking at the long game and genuinely he wants his team to win,” Stallard concluded.

McLaren and Piastri have yet to prove this arrangement is working on track, last time out Norris led from start to finish and was out of sight at the chequered flag. The previous event in Baku saw Piastri win, but his team mate was never on the same section of asphalt with Lando coming home in just P4.

Red Bull are throwing there kitchen sink at the RB20 development bringing forward their next specification of the car in Austin. Such has been the work put in the revised RB20 is in effect a B-Spec version of its predecessor, suggesting the world champions may be bringing forward the platform for their 2025 car.

Ruud Dimmers explained to the RacingNews365 podcast, “It’s starting to go six races finally, a little more than 50-point lead. Will it work [an upgrade] or will it not. The magical update from Red Bull.

Horner HINTS at 2025 RBR driver lineup

 

 

 

Red Bull B-Spec car in Texas

“This is the moment in the season coming, maybe this weekend though everything can change in the next three weeks. They have just about everything I think, it is now becoming an RB20-B.”

B-Spec F1 cars were often a feature of in season development, though with the era of the cost cap they are more difficult to accommodate within the annual budget.

Of course if this is an early iteration of next years RB21, Red Bull have a jump on the field with six race weekends to dial it in. One area of dispute this season has been Mercedes and McLaren’s flexing wings. Having been now cleared by the FIA to continue with their designs, Red Bull will surely have improved the flexibility of their front wing too giving Max that much needed ‘bite on turn in’ he has complained to be lacking for much of this year.

The McLaren mini DRS rear wing may inspire the engineers in Milton Keynes too, although this design is believed only to be deployed by the Woking team at one of the remaining race weekends in 2024.

McLaren are one of three Formula One teams to present a special livery for the race in Austin along with Haas F1 and Alpine. The chrome based paint job emphasises the team’s partnership with Google along with striking liveries from yesteryear when the team was sponsored by Vodafone.

Mercedes: BIG warning to Hamilton’s successor

 

 

 

Cadillac buy Renault F1 engine division

The FIA push for more F1 power unit manufacturers has primarily failed with Audi in effect replacing the outgoing Renault which leaves just Red Bull-Ford as the net gain in numbers. The Porsche division of VAG had made much of the fact they wished to return to F1 but they failed to persuade Red Bull they would not interfere with the running of the team.

Yet there are other manufacturers lurking in the background and this weeks announcement of a collaboration between Haas F1 and Toyota raises the spectre of a return to the sport by the Japanese auto manufacturer since their departure at the end of the 2009 season.

The Haas F1 team boss revealed the team would continue with its current partnerships with Ferrari and Dellara although industry experts believes the racing arm of Toyota will assume some if not all of the Dallara manufacturing services currently provided to Haas… READ MORE