Red Bull's F1 advantage?
 

I am consistantly amazed year after year with the creativity and abilities of F1 engineers. The top teams are constantly challenged by the F1 regulators throwing sticks in their spokes so to speak. If you watched the Singapore GP Vettle's mechanical advantage was obvious, while he's obviously a great driving talent I don't believe he's that much better than Alonso.

I found this article very interesting:
http://jalopnik.com/red-bull-may-hav...olo-1442585020

I have been a huge F1 fan for years, but Vettel constantly winning is getting boring (for me anyways I'm a Ferrari fan). For sure his car has the advantage as did Schumacher those 5 years in a row he won for Ferrari. Apparently next year they are moving to turbo V6's meh. IMO The regulations are ruining the sport. The 21,000 rpm V10's were unbelievable to hear in person.

The regulators can't beat the engineers, not saying it makes for good racing. Their creativity is impressive though.

That said I miss the real racing the IROC Series delivered.

the 21000 rpm v10s were the pinnacle of the sport. nothing beat hearing one of those go down the front straight at indy

as boring as it may be at the racing level, and I agree it does get boring, the technology gains trying to circumvent the rules eventually trickle down to your everyday drivers.

I'm talking more on the fan level. It gets boring seeing the same driver win all the time. They made all these drastic regulaton changes to prevent Ferrari from continuing to win after 2005 and now its come back full circle with Redbull who's going to win 4 years in a row.

Same with Jimmy Johnson.

I agree the level that redbull is on is on a whole other level.

If notice the sports they are major sponsors of only lasts when they kick ass. Redbull did not last in Nascar as they went no where with their sponsorship dollars. Redbull dominates, F1, V8 supercars, offroad racing, quite a few others.

But I also think the engineers are just as important as the drivers talent, maybe even more important. And that just comes down to money from sponsors. The engineering that F1 has is awesome.

It also helps that they don't have spending caps either. The money Redbull spends as a whole on sponsorships at all levels has got to be mind boggling.

Jimmie Johnson doesn't have a performance advantage he has a skill advantage and a crew chief that has great strategies. There are 15 cars with a real chance to win every week

Sebastian definitely has been an impressive driver to watch. His ability to get out front and gap the other cars so quickly is amazing. Sometimes I wonder if he and the car are so far ahead of the field technology-wise, that he gets that gap and then sand bags so it doesn't raise any eyebrows. He consistently gets a 2-2.5sec in the first lap, and then maintains it. Perhaps they just tweak the fuel trim each lap to keep the pack in range of him to make it seem the following cars are relativity fast to him?

At Suzuka it was interesting that Red Bull appeared to be dealing a KERS issue with Vettel's car and he wasn't able to get the start or make the traditional gap. Which could indicate their KERS is a form of outlaw traction control.

Red Bull made up for it with their now typical excellent race strategy and consistent mid-2 second pit performances.

At 2.99 for an 8oz can of the CRACK. Can you imagine HOW much they have to spend!!!
It truly is just as amazing a success story as the race events and cars they sponsor.

I would watch F1 more if they got way deeper into the Technical part. I know most can't fathom spending 1/2 Billion dollars a year and 300employees to go race 2 cars but that is the last number I heard that Ferrari spent and that was a few years ago. I am sure RB spends more than that. it really is crazy, and the governing body are all nut bars, talking out one side of their mouth saying they want to contain costs and the other side they change the engine program every season. if they gave the teams 5 years with a certain engine combination. I think you would see better racing, they would have time to develop the chassis and not have to worry about the powerplant. but what do I know??

Robin Hood in reverse. :D

Just the team transportation logistics and expense is mind boggling.

"nut bars" :lmao:

From Autoweek:

It is no secret that there is a close correlation in F1 between budget size and on-track results. RBR is one of the biggest spenders, and the scale of its investment is revealed in its latest financial statements, which are for the year ending Dec. 31, 2011.


The data show that the team had total costs of $284.4 million, an 11 percent increase compared to 2010. Unsurprisingly, research and development was one of its biggest single expenses—the team's parent company, Red Bull Technology, spent $112.8 million in that department. RBT does some marketing for Red Bull itself and also makes gearboxes for Caterham's F1 team, but its core business is designing RBR's F1 car, so this accounts for the vast majority of its R&D spending


Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2013...#ixzz2hkEzKvCn
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I thought I remember from an HBO show about Red Bull and their spending on racing, bmx, Xgames, plane races, parachute records, etc. was something like 54% of their income. That is beyond a huge % of a business budget, but when one has the reins of a privately held empire........

I too would like to see more of the tech side of it, but that does not fit into the average audience member desires. The vast majority of John Q. Pubic have no clue or care about it. They just like that it sounds neat.

Great article Carl - Thanks

Had a meeting w the Red Bull CIO a couple of years ago. I went in to talk about food and beverage distribution software. He promptly corrected me and told me, "we are not a food and beverage company, we are a marketing company."

Pretty much says it all...