The Red(bull) Menace

The F1 FunCast podcast is discussing Red Bull Racing's domination in the 2023 Formula One season. Despite not being an expert, the host acknowledges Red Bull's strong performance and the frustration it brings to other teams. The battle between Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez is highlighted, with Perez showing a desire to win races for himself. The host also mentions the midfield teams trying to catch up to Red Bull, particularly Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Ferrari. The host questions whether the restrictions placed on Red Bull's development will have any real impact on their dominance. Overall, Red Bull's strong start to the season is a cause for concern for other teams. Hello and welcome to the F1 FunCast, the only Formula One podcast designed to teach or host all the things about Formula One that wouldn't teach me in school. I'm James Messer, you're riding on board with me today. What do you say we turn those lights out and get this party started? Hello and yes, this is the first episode of the Formula One FunCast, or the F1 FunCast as we call it here in the studio. I am James Messer and I would encourage you to follow along with all social media at F1 FunCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all those places. I'm really thankful that you joined me here today. It's not an easy topic for us to discuss today, but today we're going to be talking about what I call the Red Menace, and that is Red Bull Racing and their continued domination of the sport of Formula One so far here in 2023. For those of you that don't really know me or this podcast, I'm not going to sit here and claim to be some expert in Formula One race cars or aerodynamics or anything that really shows any knowledge towards motorsport whatsoever. What I am is a fan of sport and I'm a growing fan of Formula One. I can tell you right now that Red Bull is completely dominating and there doesn't seem to be too much anyone can do about it so far this season and that's really the frustrating thing because, you know, we spent the offseason getting ready and we had so much hype and anticipation before Bahrain and we heard the rumors that Red Bull had a good car this year but boy, it was that first turn at Bahrain and we kind of knew it was over, didn't we? I mean, it was like we're hyped up, we're ready to go and by the time Max took that first corner it was like, oh no, who's coming for second place this year? And that's really, it's a strange feeling as a sports fan to kind of know that the championship race is over before the season really gets cooking and gets underway, but there's still a lot, in my opinion, of fun things to look forward to this year including the battle within Red Bull that seemed to be heating up last week if you didn't notice. Checo, Sergio Perez, really did not want to give up any space or any room to Max Verstappen in those closing laps. He really wanted to fight it out and get that win for himself and you can't really blame him. The guy has, he's done everything asked of him over the past few years so when he has a chance to eke out a win, you know, I'd go for it myself to be quite honest. It's got to get tiring after a while, finishing second place, second place. I understand team dynamics are important and they're pushing Max to the front of the grid but it's got to feel good for Perez to go out there and win a race on merit without Max having an issue and, you know, you can say all about the qualifying issues you want but Checo went out and raced a good race and he was very strong and there's nothing anyone could do to catch up to him. But it is frustrating, isn't it? Kind of knowing that that's where we're headed this year as a Red Bull 1-2 all the way down the line. It's similar to someone telling you who's going to win the Super Bowl after the first week of the season, you know, but Formula One doesn't have a playoffs, right? The whole season is the playoffs and that's what we're working towards is that first race at Bahrain. That's day one of the end of the season in some ways and that showing from Red Bull really made it very clear that this is going to be a year of everyone else playing catch-up to Red Bull's fairly dominant start to the season. So they've been so dominant, I actually recently went to check out, see I'm not a historian of the sport, so I had to look up, has any team ever won every race for a Formula One season and for those of you who don't know, the answer is no. Michael Schumacher had 13 wins in a 14 race season, I believe, and then McLaren won 15 of 16 in 1998. Ferraris and Mercedes have both had seasons where they've lost, not lost, but they didn't win two races. And it's frustrating to think that we might be looking at Red Bull trying to set that record this year, trying to win each race and it's early in the season and I know there's a long way to go, but boy do they look strong, my gosh. You know, it's really tough. It's really tough to see another team making the leap to get anywhere within the ballpark and you can even look to next year and think, boy if these cars now are just catching up to where Red Bull was in 2022. It's not like Red Bull's standing still and forgetting to improve their car, they're moving forward ahead, so they've got this head start that seems really, really insurmountable, but there's still a lot of good racing to happen and I think a lot of the drama within Red Bull racing itself is going to be fun to watch with Sergio Perez seemingly kind of sticking up to his big brother Max Verstappen in a way there. You know, he wants his own glory, he wants his own wins and as much as Max says he's not there for second place, who's to say Sergio Perez decided he's there for second place? And I know I sound like a newbie fan or someone who doesn't understand team orders or how it works behind the scenes and that's true, I really don't, but if I was Sergio Perez I know that I would go out there and I wouldn't want to give an inch to Max Verstappen. I don't think Scotty Pippen was giving Michael Jordan easy days in practice, easy days on the court, everybody wants to make their own name. Everybody's got their own agenda and I think so far this year Red Bull has only lost out on one point, if that's correct, I think they missed the fastest lap at Bahrain, so I mean on one hand there's two races breaking out this season, there's the Red Bull inter-team struggle that could be happening with Perez and Verstappen both in, you know, the 1-2 cars of the season, so what are they going to do? They're going to finish first, second all year, they're going to fight each other, so that could be really interesting to watch as it develops and the thing I'm very interested in watching is the battle for the top of the midfield, for second really, because it feels to me this year that there's Red Bull and then a big midfield and then McLaren waiting at the bottom, which is really an interesting turn of events for McLaren, I'm sure you're all well aware of the issues they've had this year with their flooring and they just haven't been up to stuff, they got a late turn on the technical direction, they figured out their flaws a little late in the game, so McLaren's off to the anti-Red Bull start this year, so where does that leave us? That leaves us with a large midfield of teams that are going to be trying to catch up to Red Bull as the season goes on. The issue there is that everyone from Christian Horner to Lewis Hamilton certainly sees that this is another title run for Red Bull Racing, and as far as the winning every race of the season is concerned, I'm not sure that we're on that pace, I mean one mechanical letdown or a bad turn into the wall, just anything can happen out there on the racetrack, but boy if this was a video game simulation and there were no real life things to get in the way, I'd put money on Red Bull running away with it this year, but who are they going to run away from, right? Who are they, who is trying to catch them the closest? And there's three interesting candidates, we're all very impressed with Aston Martin this year, the leaps they've made and the pace that they've found in their car. Mercedes were less impressed with, they showed up behind the eight ball, they decided to go their own way with their side pod design and we're not sure that that's working anywhere, and Ferrari which seemingly has the second best car on the grid, but do they have the stability, do they have the, what's the word I'm looking for, the durability to get through to the end of the season and score points on a regular basis, score high points on a regular basis, it still remains to be seen. My cousin is a big Ferrari fan and boy every weekend he's texting me about same old, same old, another letdown, the car is not consistent enough, and it's really a shame because that car is probably the second fastest on the grid, even competitive with the Red Bulls, but Ferrari's got to unlock something that gets them through these races in one piece because this is going on two years now and probably longer, to be honest I'm just ignorant of the past, but two years straight now of seeing them, you know, come out looking sharp and then fizzling out with mechanical issues and strategy issues and constantly getting in their own way, which is a huge problem if you're trying to compete with a team like Red Bull who seems to make very, very few mistakes. So I suppose my question of the day to all you out there is how much of an impact these Red Bull restraints on their development costs and their wind tunnel time, will this be enough to bring them back to the field or are we looking at something that's barely a blip on their radar and they're cruising to a title looking ahead to 2024 already? It's really tough to tell. I don't know enough about wind tunnel time and development upgrades to know if anything they do is going to bring them back to the pack or not. I sure hope so. I sure hope that they miss these hours in the wind tunnel and they miss their costs, you know, their money for the cost cap because something, you know, you go over the budget, you kind of sneak around it, you've got to have a real consequence, you know. And in other sports, other American sports, we take away draft picks and we fine people and Formula One, that's the equivalent of what they did, right? They took away tunnel time and they fined them. But Red Bull has such a strong head start. I'm not sure it was enough of a disincentive to prevent them from even potentially bumping up it again and seeing how far they can push this until there's some real weight brought down on them. But at this point, they're so far ahead of the rest of the grid that they don't really need to push up against it. They don't really need to push those borders anymore, those boundaries anymore. It's very clear that whatever they were doing gained them enough of an edge, you know, through normal, their design team, through their normal processes, they have enough of an edge where they would never need to bump up against that cost cap again anyway. And it's just pure domination out of that team. And Christian Horner, can't you tell he's just loving it? He's just loving it after all this time of being the, I don't want to say the bad guy, but kind of the, you know, smarmy guy. He's married to a spice girl. So above it all, isn't it nice to see him doing so well? You know, it's, things have been so hard for Christian Horner that he's finally able to rub it in people's faces, I suppose. But no, in reality, it's very hard, very hard to catch Red Bull. It's going to be very hard to be anywhere in the class with Max and Checo. So I don't know. I don't know how it's going to go. I'd love to see Ferrari, Aston Martin, Mercedes try to gain a few seconds on them, gain, gain. What I saw this weekend was Red Bull is at about a second per lap faster than Aston Martin. So, I mean, that's almost an impossible amount of time to regain just through minor upgrades and changing some designs on the car. Teams don't have enough time or money to build out an entirely new car in order to catch them. So what do you do? You fight for second place? Do you fight for, well, what are you fighting for at this point, you know? And then on the other side of things, we've got McLaren, who just looks awful, don't they? The car just looks awful out there. I thought last weekend was a little bit better result, but boy, did they mess up. And I don't think there's any amount of wind tunnel time or upgrades or what you can do to get that car right. I mean, it's been nice seeing the Williams finishing fairly well considering the last however long that they've been in the basement. But I know two years ago I would have bet on McLaren to be on the up right now. And it seems like they're really on the downswing, which is hard to fathom. It's hard to understand. It's very frustrating if you're a McLaren fan because these are avoidable things. You know, these are mistakes that could be caught if you were on it. If you, part of me, I think, and I don't know, I could be wrong, but with McLaren it feels like there's almost a hard-headedness. The same way that Mercedes has the hard-headedness of, nope, this is our design and we know better. And this is what we're going with and you'll see. We'll prove you wrong. And in Mercedes' case, they came all the way to Bahrain with a car saying, we'll prove you wrong. That was not right. The side pods on that car and the aerodynamics on that car are just not right for Formula One this season. And it seems McLaren did somewhat the same thing, showing up with a car that they thought maybe during development they thought they were getting cute, getting sneaky, or putting one over on everybody. But it seems like just before testing started, they realized they were leaps and bounds behind. And that's just so frustrating as a McLaren fan, I imagine, because they were trending two years ago. They were trending all in the right direction and the bottom has just really fallen out lately. And it's sad to see because I like those McLarens. And it's tough to watch, tough to watch, especially when the team on the other end of the grid, Red Bull, is just blasting off in front that those teams at the back of the grid must really be feeling like they're losing ground by the minute. So where does that leave us? That leaves us with three or four cars, like we said, shooting for second place every week or a place on the podium every week. Fernando Alonso has been amazing. He's been off to a great start. But Lance Struhrl isn't quite getting as much out of his car as Fernando. So it's really an interesting three-way race for second, isn't it? Does the slower but more reliable Mercedes just continue to rack up those points every week like they did last year where they kept pressed into the end of the season and never had a car retire? Or is it going to be Ferrari finally unlocking that last key of durability and getting themselves right up under Red Bull again? Or are we looking at Aston Martin maybe getting Lance Struhrl to kind of turn that corner and join Fernando ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari? It's really hard to tell. And it's hard to see what Mercedes can do that's going to have them leapfrog anyone. Because let's say Mercedes shows up with Red Bull side pods, essentially 3D printed and slapped on the side of that Mercedes. Well, you're still working from behind. You're still working. Aston Martin and Red Bull, they've had such a head start with this car design. Mercedes has such a flawed design in their car that just no matter what you do, they really put themselves in a box. And I feel for Toto, who I don't know if any of you have watched the Drive to Survive this season, but that is a man who looks like he is losing his mind with every lap that goes around. He can't stand losing, and this has been really tough for him. But I just wonder, what happened in the Mercedes headquarters? What happened when they decided, hey, we're going to be the outlier. We're going to go completely different. Get those side pods down. And sometimes, I know, you want to be the smartest kid in class. You want to show up with something completely different than everybody else. I've got to believe there were warnings inside the car, inside Mercedes, before testing this year, before they rolled it out. I've got to believe that they knew this was coming, and they could have had some upgrades ready to go a little bit quicker than they do now. So here we are with Red Bull at the very top, and three or four cars really chasing, and then another four cars ahead of the back of the pack. And I don't want to say McLaren is the back of the pack at this point. I want to give them a little benefit of the doubt. But it's a long way back to where they were even two years ago. So it should be interesting, right? This Red Menace of Red Bull, are you guys out there rooting for Checo to push Max a little bit and maybe get in his way from some drama within the camp? Or is this a year where we just give it up to Max Verstappen, watch his taillights from a long ways off, and get ready for next year? Me personally, I'd love to see Sergio Perez give it back to Max a little bit. You know, it's been such a long streak of Verstappen dominance. And Checo, you know, it's like when Valtteri Bottas was number two to Lewis Hamilton. It just has to wear on you after a while. I wonder if Checo's looking to make a name for himself. I haven't looked up his contract status, but I wonder if he's looking to get out of there. There could be shake-ups all up and down the field within the next couple of years. There's talk about Charles Leclerc not really loving what's been going on in Ferrari. There's constant drama surrounding Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. I wonder if Checo is seeing that he could get bumped to a number one in another car. Or if he's just going to fight for his life inside that team. I'll be rooting for him, because a year of Max Verstappen just driving off to Never Neverland is going to be brutal. You know, someone told me they said he needs to get an Audible subscription so he can listen to some books on PayPal. He's so far ahead of everyone. When my wife and I drove across the country, all we did was listen to podcasts and books. That's pretty much where Max is now. He's just going to pop in a self-help CD on quitting. I don't know what he needs to quit. He probably doesn't need to quit anything. How about quilting? Maybe he's listening to a book on quilting. While he's just zooming around the track in front of everybody else. And Christian Horner's just lapping it up. I hate it. I hate it. But you've got to give your credit to the Red Menace. And hopefully, going forward, we won't be talking about them too much more. We'll talk more about the midfield and the upgrades. And the things that everybody wants to see happen this year in Formula One. I think a lot of people got a bit excited with some of the drive to survive stuff. Really making it feel like every year is going to be down to the last lap of the last race. And it's clear that's not the case. And if you've been a fan for a long time, you know that's not the case. But there's still plenty to root for during this season. And, you know, as an American, I'm going to root for Haas to keep making a push. I'm really impressed and happy with the direction they're going. And it's fun to root for those midfield battles. You kind of find yourself finding different things to root for. Not just the winner or the podium. But I personally am rooting for Yuki Tsunoda this year to get himself some points and to have a good showing. He, you know, maybe he's turned that corner. Maybe he's grown a little bit into the role of being a number one F1 driver. And I'd love to see Yuki kind of get some of that love from the fans. And get some of that shine that comes with getting up there in the points a little bit. So there's a lot to look forward to this year. Plenty to be optimistic about. But boy, Red Bull really looks like they're ready to stomp their way to another title though, don't they? So with that and with those thoughts out of the way and my Red Bull, I have to purge that from my system. I have to give them their credit now. Because I don't think you'll be hearing a lot of Red Bull praise from me as this podcast develops. But you have to give it up when you can. And it's certainly going to be a year of Red Bull ahead of everybody else. But maybe that will give us an excuse not to talk about them. And talk about these other teams that are doing so much good work out there. So with that, I think we're going to wrap up the first episode of the F1 FunCast. I'd love to hear from you if you want to send me an email. It's F1FunCast at gmail.com. Or if you want to hit me up on Twitter, it's the same. It's at F1FunCast. F1FunCast on Instagram or wherever else you might be looking to connect on social media. I really appreciate you checking out this first episode. I promise the quality is only going to get better as we go. But I look forward to speaking to you guys again next week sometime after the next Grand Prix. Until then, all the best, my friends. Take care.