2024 Season Grand Prix Megathread

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The team has not confirmed the nature of the complaint made against Horner but BBC Sport understands the claims relate to an allegation of inappropriate and controlling behaviour.

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Many insiders who have discussed the situation with BBC Sport do not expect him to survive in his role.

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If Horner is removed from his position, either by being sacked or resigning, sources say he would be replaced by an executive from the Austrian side of Red Bull.

Could that be Oliver Mintzlaff, former head of RB Leipzig football team and, since co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz's death in October 2022, chief executive officer of corporate projects with oversight of F1?

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Trackside, the key figure on the operational side is their long-time sporting director Jonathan Wheatley. Insiders say he may have been eyeing a promotion if Red Bull decided to dispense with Horner. If he is passed over for an Austrian manager with no F1 experience, might he also feel it is time to look for pastures new?

 

(BBC's Christian Horner: Red Bull team principal under investigation following allegations)

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BBC suggests that the complaint levied against him has to do with an over the top managerial attitude.

There's also talks about a rift in the organization, with Horner trying to push Marko out, and with Jos Verstappen siding with the latter – cue in the first wind of this nasty business coming from a Dutch media outlet.

With so much potential for damage in those cards for the company and the Red Bull brand, the way they're conducting this whole ordeal makes it seem like there's indeed some level of reprehensible behavior going on.

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@mariohomoh wrote:

Jolyon Palmer commenting on a Ferrari quirk, so to speak. He goes over their telemetry to show how both drivers, but especially Leclerc, have adapted to squeeze more performance from the SF-23 by overlapping the pedal inputs: a dash of throttle to go with their braking on high speed corners. The goal is to keep the attitude of the car in check, keeping it from diving too much, in order to get more downforce from the levelled out underfloor.

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Loving this video and that guy too ❤️🤓

I'll miss my bathtub.

Jolyon Palmer with yet another short but informative video. This one is about drivers experimenting to find a good wet line around the track.

I'd just add that, while some drivers do indeed have a better knack at it, it is not the case of some just dimmingly sticking to the racing line. I'd still bet on Verstappen to put out a better performance in the rain over Ocon, but while Ocon is shown to be conservative in the video there could very well be other instances where he crafts a better wet line than Max.

This is not in contradiction to anything Palmer says, he doesn't really suggest otherwise. It just so happens that people out there can be too happy on the trigger and too dismissive of a F1 driver skills.

Two cool visualization going back to that infamous 2021 Belgium GP, one to the point and the other with nice commentary from The Race:

So RB seems to be taking cues from the least understood car on the grid from the last two years if the leaked photos and renders are anything to go by and RB aren't trolling; they've taken the cannon/shoulders/gulleys engine cover, overbite sidepod and rumoured vertical inlets from the no sidepods Mercs.

Interesting if they've gone that route while most have converged on last year's design. This is going to be another long season I think...

@mariohomohThe gulley's on the RB engine cover looks like they may create a bathtub...all is not lost 😂

I'm really excited for the pre-season testing tomorrow. It really looks like RB took Mercedes ideas and expanded on them. No way that's just a troll. They must have found some extra performance there and I'm sure there are heated discussions going on in the Mercedes garage because of it.

Wondering  if Red Bull choose to sandbag or if they believe they have a dominant car.   Decide to just let Max go full attack come end off testing to completely destroy all hope anyone had…. That’s what I’d do.   Kick em when they are down and keep on  kicking 

My guess is Red Bull took a look at the 22 Mercedes and said there's some interesting ideas there... poor execution and application but definitely some interesting theories. So they went and stuffed it in an oven for two years to work out the kinks while they kept working with what they had.. Now that they've figured out what Merc couldn't, they pulled it out of the oven, fused it the super car they had, and now even Perez is gonna be lapping the field... who will of course in turn be lapped by Max.

The real question is, who amongst Merc, Ferrari, Mclaren, and Aston throws dignity to the wind first and begins intentionally under fueling their car, knowing they won't have to do a full race distance due to being lapped, in order to gain an advantage over the other three.

Btw, has anyone heard about Horner's investigation?

All I read online was "decision is coming" but nothing yet. Is he going to show his face around pre-testing sessions?

Hmm... their new car is pushing towards the future I fear... 😞

Very first day of testing is barely done and all signs already point towards a repeat of last year. 😕

@EA_VendceraAnd as the season progresses one by one all the teams cars will start to resemble the Red Bull

i think F1 rules should be changed so that every team gets equal quality time with Newey 😂

Btw, I think Jeff Dodds is safe, he won't be paying any money to charity this season

https://racingnews365.com/formula-e-ceo-to-donate-250k-to-charity-if-verstappen-is-defeated

It must be killing Toto and the engineers inside of it turns out they were on to something special all along. But it or they needed Newey to fully realise,  understand and implement it.

Always aggravating when you come up with something awesome.  Only for someone else to go Hmmm I know their game.  Then stealing your thunder by doing it better 

@ScarDuck14 100%

And wow, @P4st3l1ak what a statement by the CEO of Formula E nonetheless!

I still remember all the people complaining about Mercedes dominance, but I don't think they were ever that far ahead of everyone else like Red Bull was last - and most likely this year.

I know this is quite the silly take to have, but I genuinely hope this "Red Bull zeropods" talking point gets revisited soon.

I mean, Red Bull still have their iconic ground effect era sidepods with their aggressive undercut/downwash concept:

Full on sidepods.

Oh I know this borders on pedantry. I mean, a misnomer, who cares? 😂

Even I have been guilty of mentioning the zeropods in this context.

That's not what bothers me though. It's just that the Red Bull pulled out what I deem the most interesting design of this pre-season yet, with so many airflow things going on I don't even know where to lock my eyes on. It is a very busy concept and I cannot wait for the proper quality analysis wave to commence.

And that's a Newey signed car! 

Here are true (or truish) zeropods:

And the quasi-zeropods of 2023:

The absolute failure of a refreshing livery from Red bull's part was fully compensated by their delivery of a refreshing aero concept, considering what the regulations entails for the 2024.

In a way I think it's doing Newey dirty calling it a zeropod - besides the misnomer "issue".

Newey 🤌

I don't think you'll ever see a true zero side pod Red Bull, I think that was the primary fatal flaw in the Merc. As Toto pointed out it creates drag from the rear tires plus it just creates so many other internal packaging issues which is why Hamilton and Russel were always complaining about the car feeling stiff and/or unbalanced.

I think what Red Bull really wanted from the Merc is what we are seeing... a high rear end. This is just speculation and obviously I don't know the specifics but given their previous emphasis on an aggressive undercut to generate a powerful downwash to supply to ground effect downforce... Figuring out a way to move your center of gravity higher would in theory allow you to continue doubling down on the aggressive ground effect theories without risk of inducing porpoising (sp?) or having to raise ride height.

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@TotosHeadphones wrote:
The downforce levels were meant to very good but with the learning that peak downforce is useless without a car that maintains it's attitude, I think we could have seen a good car (providing that the main contributor to it all, the floor was good).

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Now, that's a quote to make Gary Anderson proud if I've ever seen one 👏

James Allison, Dan Fallows, James Key... you all better watch out. Post-xTwitter TotosHeadphones is coming in with the big guns for 2024 🦾