Welcome to Thursday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
If Red Bull are firing a driver after just two races they need to look beyond him for an explanation what went wrong, says Stephen:
One thing which is being overlooked is Liam is given the car to race by Red Bull. They define the settings and adjustments on the car and the strategy. If there’s a problem with the car, which we’re being told there is, then why is Liam the only one being held responsible for the poor performance?
Shouldn’t others be blamed as well? How does Red Bull expect to improve things if those responsible for the car’s set-up and strategy are the same for Yuki as for Liam? If those responsible for the car know how to set the car up correctly for Yuki then why didn’t they do it for Liam?
If Liam is going to be demoted to Racing Bulls, then surely the Red Bull team principal and a few others should also be demoted as well, while the Racing Bulls team principal and the equivalent few others should be promoted along with Yuki.
Stephen Crowsen (@Drycrust)
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Justin!
On this day in motorsport
- Born on this day in 1965: Gregor Foitek, who wasted a season failing to qualify the hopeless 1989 EuroBrun, and fared little better at Brabham and Onyx the following year
- Born today in 1971: David Coulthard, who went on to win 13 grands prix
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
27th March 2025, 2:05
Sonny Hayes in the F1 ‘25. Interesting tie-in.
Haven’t upgraded my F1 game since 2020, maybe I’ll give this one a go.
An Sionnach
27th March 2025, 2:14
Perhaps Ricky Bobby should consider a crack at F1?
Steven Williamson
27th March 2025, 4:33
If they include Jean Girard, it’s a must buy. Game Changing! A Golden Age of Sim Racing!
An Sionnach
27th March 2025, 8:58
They should add inverted tracks, too. Not going backwards, but upside-down. If you win the championship you have to do it all again on the inverted tracks to get the good ending.
Streps
27th March 2025, 10:46
I’m not a fan of driving an advert for the next F1 film. I’d much rather have some classic cars. This feels very on the nose.
El Pollo Loco
27th March 2025, 4:58
Hopefully Newey succeeds off the bat and Alonso’s body holds up so that just once in his career he can enjoy a dominant chassis. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 he had cars that largely allowed him to control his own fortunes, but never a car one that could rack up endless wins and poles in over one season that pads those driver stats.
It must be frustrating to keep up the fanatical physical regiment he follows in order to be competitive at such an age and continually be given mediocre machinery. I can’t see his neck, back, etc. holding up well enough beyond maybe next season for him to feel he’s still operating at a level he feels is high to keep going in F1. We’ll just have to wait and see.
El Pollo Loco
27th March 2025, 5:00
over one season*
SteveP
27th March 2025, 7:47
2005,2006 he had the car and no competition from the other side of the garage, and succeeded.
2007 he had competition, and lost the contest.
Of his health – I do hope that’s not a spinal problem, as those things can literally cripple you. (Family experience)
BenHur
27th March 2025, 17:39
Hungaroring 2007: when your own team is advocating with the stewards to get you penalised in order to favor your teammate, you know something is not right with the team you are in.
Securing the same points as your teammate with a pariah status in the team for 80% of the season when they are doing all they can and a few things the cannot to ruin you and favor the other entity, is just about superhuman
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:14
The penalty in Hungary alone which began with Lewis not following the agreed upon alternation in who ran in front cost him the WDC alone. Alonso must accept some responsibility for not taking Lewis seriously enough early in the season and throwing away points by being overly aggressive multiple (such as at the start of the race in Spain) cost him dearly too. Either way, Steve’s comments made absolutely no sense in the context of my original post. I never said anything about how he did or did not do in 2007. It simply said he never had a dominant car which enables an easy WDC and that allows one to pad their stats, unlike MSC, Vettel, Hamilton and Max all got at some point let alone having a car capable of challenging for WDCs. That’s really bad luck however you look at it.
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:19
multiple times*
An Sionnach
27th March 2025, 9:16
After hearing about how difficult the Red Bull is to drive I think I understand why Newey said he would be interested in working with Lewis or Alonso. You need a fast driver to get the most out of a fast car. Hopefully Alonso can still do it if he gets that car.
Looking at how intricate some of the bodywork is on the McLaren compared to the Red Bull I wonder if this is something Newey can contend with using paper. McLaren’s design seems so complex that perhaps they have taken a step above what’s been done on any F1 car up to now? Yes, it’s a lot of work for marginal gains, but they are squeezing the last performance out of the design. Well done, McLaren. Perhaps Aston needs one of the McLaren designers to complement Newey’s grand plan with these little optimisations?
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:19
I completely agree. I think it would be crazy to argue against the idea that one of the main reasons the Red Bull has become such a disaster is they no longer have anyone there who truly understands his design. It doesn’t help that they overruled him 2023 when they were working on the 2024 car after he said they were taking an evolutionary path that would not work. They took it against his advice and the problems began. It became especially bad when he stopped doing the suspension setups in 2024. A suspension he designed and obviously understood how to setup to maximize the aero and drivability.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 5:54
As I suspected, the upcoming game has only been made for the current-generation console types (which could’ve already happened in the recent past), meaning my streak of playing every single official game since the mid-2000s will end & that I won’t play F1 25 one bit unless my PS4 breaks down within the ongoing season in which case I’d buy a PS5 because I’d preferably play any single official game within its real-life season rather than beyond that season’s end, especially when technical regulations are about to change.
S Arkazam
27th March 2025, 7:47
Maybe Red Bull should ‘demote’ Verstappen to Racing Bulls and let him fight for wins.
Added benefit: Red Bull can then focus 100% on 2026.
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:21
It’d be awesomely entertaining and it’d be great to see, but no doubt the sponsor contracts would never allow such a switch. I also doubt they’d do it because it would just be very embarrassing for the organization as a whole.
R Goodchild
27th March 2025, 7:52
There is clearly a fundamental flaw on the second driver side of the Red Bull garage that has, while present since Riccardo’s day, grown massively worse over the past couple of years.
If I was Red Bull, I’d effectively deconstruct most of that side of the race team pending a workplace investigation, giving Yuki a mixture of Verstappen and RB mechanics for his first couple of races to bed him in.
MichaelN
27th March 2025, 9:12
Briatore on the Beyond the Grid podcast told the story of how he once ordered Schumacher to drive the second Benetton, only for him to still be comfortably faster than his teammate. I forgot who it was at the time.
But it’s definitely a long term issue at Red Bull. Something is off about that. It sometimes happens at back marker teams that struggle to produce upgrade parts, but at Red Bull? For so many years with different drivers?
Craig
27th March 2025, 12:01
It’s quite apparent it’s been a problem for a long time, but it’s just as apparent that Red Bull has no interest in doing anything about it.
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:27
While it’s clear RBR focus the bulk of their efforts on Max, I find your comment hilariously predictable and also hypocritical. If Lewis drove for Red Bull you’d be defending them tooth and nail and talking about how the only problem is that Hamilton is a genius and the other drivers aren’t.
And Hamilton is a genius. Just like Max. It’d be foolish to waste time compromising your #1 to help your mediocre number twos.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
27th March 2025, 8:54
Apparently it’s official. Tsunoda is replacing Lawson. It’s on Facebook as an F1 announcement.
S Arkazam
27th March 2025, 9:04
I’d like to see the confirmation on TokTok first before I believe it.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/breaking-tsunoda-to-replace-lawson-at-red-bull-from-japanese-gp-as-new.49qawI5Q4YYPhhMJpHqUiO