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Qualifying comparisons between the Red Bull guys at the Spainish grand prix. How will it work out ?

I was considering making a thread like this, so good on you!

I voted for Ricciardo being ~0.5 seconds quicker. Although it occurs to me I also voted for Vettel to beat Ricciardo in qualifying back at the end of 2013, so take that with a grain of salt...

Went with 0.5-0.7
I've seen nothing special from max and don't believe he deserves this seat.
And I honestly believe ric will walk all over him.
Max is too hot headed, I reckon he'll fold worse then Danny did.

Aussie Grit wrote:Went with 0.5-0.7
I've seen nothing special from max and don't believe he deserves this seat.
And I honestly believe ric will walk all over him.
Max is too hot headed, I reckon he'll fold worse then Danny did.

Voted the same, and there's really nothing about this that I don't agree with.

The thing worth noting here is that if Verstappen really is the second coming of the racing gods, what does it make Ricciardo if he beats Max?

specdecible wrote:The thing worth noting here is that if Verstappen really is the second coming of the racing gods, what does it make Ricciardo if he beats Max?

Comfortable in his car? Seriously though, jumping into a different team mid season is tough for anyone (even for a second coming of the racing gods) so I don't expect Verstappen to be close to Ricciardo but that wouldn't make him poor. If he's within a second of Dan I'd call it decent. I'm no fan of the kid but if he's close to Ricciardo (or even better bests him) then I might have to change my opinion.

I bet a lot of surprises, the thing about Redbull is they share the same simulator he might be up to speed quicker than most think!

Covalent wrote:

specdecible wrote:The thing worth noting here is that if Verstappen really is the second coming of the racing gods, what does it make Ricciardo if he beats Max?

Comfortable in his car? Seriously though, jumping into a different team mid season is tough for anyone (even for a second coming of the racing gods) so I don't expect Verstappen to be close to Ricciardo but that wouldn't make him poor. If he's within a second of Dan I'd call it decent. I'm no fan of the kid but if he's close to Ricciardo (or even better bests him) then I might have to change my opinion.

And the excuses are already pouring in

Nobody should be a second away from their team mate in a modern F1 car. Not if they put in a lap without making errors. Nobody is a second away based on speed. The gap between Hamilton/Ricciardo and Haryanto is probably no more than 1.2s.

specdecible wrote:

Covalent wrote:

specdecible wrote:The thing worth noting here is that if Verstappen really is the second coming of the racing gods, what does it make Ricciardo if he beats Max?

Comfortable in his car? Seriously though, jumping into a different team mid season is tough for anyone (even for a second coming of the racing gods) so I don't expect Verstappen to be close to Ricciardo but that wouldn't make him poor. If he's within a second of Dan I'd call it decent. I'm no fan of the kid but if he's close to Ricciardo (or even better bests him) then I might have to change my opinion.

And the excuses are already pouring in

Which part are you disagreeing with or are you just stirring?

mikeyg123 wrote:Nobody should be a second away from their team mate in a modern F1 car. Not if they put in a lap without making errors. Nobody is a second away based on speed. The gap between Hamilton/Ricciardo and Haryanto is probably no more than 1.2s.

Not on equal terms no.

Covalent wrote:

specdecible wrote:

Covalent wrote:

specdecible wrote:The thing worth noting here is that if Verstappen really is the second coming of the racing gods, what does it make Ricciardo if he beats Max?

Comfortable in his car? Seriously though, jumping into a different team mid season is tough for anyone (even for a second coming of the racing gods) so I don't expect Verstappen to be close to Ricciardo but that wouldn't make him poor. If he's within a second of Dan I'd call it decent. I'm no fan of the kid but if he's close to Ricciardo (or even better bests him) then I might have to change my opinion.

And the excuses are already pouring in

Which part are you disagreeing with or are you just stirring?

The might be a clue

Voted 0.1-0.3 in Ricciardo's favor.
I don't think Verstappen will be troubling Ricciardo too much in quali in his first 5-10 races. Ricciardo is an absolute boss in qualifying and Verstappen needs to adapt to the new car and team first. If he stays within a margin of 0.1-0.2 this season that would be okay and better than Kvyat did anyway.

Of course, if at some point Verstappen surpasses Ricciardo (the kid is still only 18 after all), I'm sure a lot of people will have their conspiracy theories about favoritism ready.

I've voted for 0.5-0.7 quicker. In fact I'll go out there and say 0.523 seconds difference. Ricciardo is a great qualifier, and Verstappen is having his first real drive of the car in anger. Although he will have spent years driving the RBR simulator so I wouldn't be too surprised if he does quite a lot better than that. It's also a track that the drivers know like the back of their hands too.

Ricciardo will be a lot quicker until Max adapts to his new car.
Same for Kvyat, I bet Sainz will be clearly quicker in the first few races.

nixxxon wrote:Ricciardo will be a lot quicker until Max adapts to his new car.
Same for Kvyat, I bet Sainz will be clearly quicker in the first few races.

I wonder who will finish ahead; Verstappen or Sainz.

Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

I have this strange feeling Verstappen is going to qualify ahead of Ricciardo in Spain. I suspect over the rest of the season (or however long he's at Red Bull) Ricciardo will outpace him more often than not, but it would be pretty typical of Verstappen's rise to prominence if he immediately outqualifies Ricciardo.

Wow at all the ppl that have Ricciardo smashing Verstappen 0.5s+

If that was the case, Marko would have not have promoted him in the 1st place. One of his reasons was Kvyat has been 3 to 5 tenths slower than Dan this season which is true. So for Marko to put in Verstappen in only to be worse than that would be egg on his face. In RBR you are expected to perform from the off, I don't think Marko would be too happy if it took a while for Verstappen to get up to pace.

Not to mention that Verstappen and all the F1 drivers have driven around Barca so many times...we've seen Vandoorne come in and not even drive F1 to out-qualify Button.

I'm voting for 0.1-0.3 seconds in DRs favour and I expect that to be the case throughout the whole season with MV out qualifying DR every now and then. I wouldn't be surprised if it was as early as Canada as for some reason DR has always struggled there ever since he started in F1.

Clearly Ricciardo should beat Verstappen - regardless of the fact that Verstappen will have had lots of simulator time and there is not much difference between the cars other than engine parameters and some aero issues - which Verstappen will no doubt relatively quickly work out.

Still think this is a silly move - perhaps should have had Verstappen do a friday FP1 for a race - but we have what we have

Verstappen has 'nothing' to lose - whereas DR does - so the pressure relatively speaking is on Dan not the other way

TypingChicane wrote:Voted 0.1-0.3 in Ricciardo's favor.
I don't think Verstappen will be troubling Ricciardo too much in quali in his first 5-10 races. Ricciardo is an absolute boss in qualifying and Verstappen needs to adapt to the new car and team first. If he stays within a margin of 0.1-0.2 this season that would be okay and better than Kvyat did anyway.

Of course, if at some point Verstappen surpasses Ricciardo (the kid is still only 18 after all), I'm sure a lot of people will have their conspiracy theories about favoritism ready.

Oh Gawd! Please don't let this turn into Webber vs. Vettel Part II. The Aussie everybody loves against the youngster that everybody thinks is overrated.

For Spain only I'll give DR a .1-.3 advantage, but it should be real close over the rest of the season with each taking their turns edging the other out in qualy. I'll have to wait to see how the first couple of races pan out before trying to guess at how that might look the rest of the year.

Verstappen has stated that he goes into Spain with no expectations and no more than the usual pressure. Personally and right now I don't think single lap qualifying performance is relevant. What matters is the rate of improvement and how he manages all the car's systems. Drivers continually complain (and it's valid) that they have become more systems managers than pure racers. And since Verstappen will be going to a new team with a different chassis, a different engine, and different engineers, learning to manage the car through the entire race is a completely different matter than just single lap performance.

Ricciardo is the benchmark for good reason. He's a very good qualifier. He has very good race pace, and has the smarts. He definitely is one of the elite drivers, up there with Vettel, Hamilton, and the like.

What is much more interesting for me is how Kvyat matches up against Sainz, they are now in a competition for a future Red Bull seat.

I think positions after the race will tell a better story. Qualifying if a flat out lap with an engineered gap infront of you and little to do with other cars.
The race will be down to the drivers.

Was that an option for Red Bull? Swapping Max and Kyvat for a few FP1's? That would have been a good idea to bed Max into the lead team and getting an idea of how quick he is and Kyvat is against Sainz

Which raises the question, has a driver ever driven two teams cars in one weekend?

lamo wrote:Was that an option for Red Bull? Swapping Max and Kyvat for a few FP1's? That would have been a good idea to bed Max into the lead team and getting an idea of how quick he is and Kyvat is against Sainz

Which raises the question, has a driver ever driven two teams cars in one weekend?

I'm sure it has over race weekends, but the only specific instance I can think of off the top of my head was Wehrlein swapping between Mercedes and FI during testing (in the same day even?) last year.

I think Kvyat vs Sainz will be very revealing.

It is so interesting to have this rare chance to see how drivers compare. If Kvyat can be more clearly faster than Sainz then Verstappen what does that tell us?

0.3-0.5 in Ric's favour, but maybe is going to be less after Barcelona, interesting times ahead. I don't think Max is better than Ric.....yet.

iano wrote:I think Kvyat vs Sainz will be very revealing.

It is so interesting to have this rare chance to see how drivers compare. If Kvyat can be more clearly faster than Sainz then Verstappen what does that tell us?

Just to confuse the hell out of everybody, I sort of hope Kvyat is further clear of Sainz than Verstappen was, but Verstappen is closer to Ricciardo than Kvyat was.

v@sh wrote:Wow at all the ppl that have Ricciardo smashing Verstappen 0.5s+

If that was the case, Marko would have not have promoted him in the 1st place. One of his reasons was Kvyat has been 3 to 5 tenths slower than Dan this season which is true. So for Marko to put in Verstappen in only to be worse than that would be egg on his face. In RBR you are expected to perform from the off, I don't think Marko would be too happy if it took a while for Verstappen to get up to pace.

Not to mention that Verstappen and all the F1 drivers have driven around Barca so many times...we've seen Vandoorne come in and not even drive F1 to out-qualify Button.

I'm voting for 0.1-0.3 seconds in DRs favour and I expect that to be the case throughout the whole season with MV out qualifying DR every now and then. I wouldn't be surprised if it was as early as Canada as for some reason DR has always struggled there ever since he started in F1.

How much do Red Bull actually know about their drivers when they are not in the same team, Ricciardo only got his chance because Webber decided to retire, hindsight shows that Ricciardo was better than Webber.

F1Oz wrote:Clearly Ricciardo should beat Verstappen - regardless of the fact that Verstappen will have had lots of simulator time and there is not much difference between the cars other than engine parameters and some aero issues - which Verstappen will no doubt relatively quickly work out.

Still think this is a silly move - perhaps should have had Verstappen do a friday FP1 for a race - but we have what we have

Verstappen has 'nothing' to lose - whereas DR does - so the pressure relatively speaking is on Dan not the other way

You say that but how much could Max take getting beat by Ricciardo on a regular basis?

RaggedMan wrote:

TypingChicane wrote:Voted 0.1-0.3 in Ricciardo's favor.
I don't think Verstappen will be troubling Ricciardo too much in quali in his first 5-10 races. Ricciardo is an absolute boss in qualifying and Verstappen needs to adapt to the new car and team first. If he stays within a margin of 0.1-0.2 this season that would be okay and better than Kvyat did anyway.

Of course, if at some point Verstappen surpasses Ricciardo (the kid is still only 18 after all), I'm sure a lot of people will have their conspiracy theories about favoritism ready.

Oh Gawd! Please don't let this turn into Webber vs. Vettel Part II. The Aussie everybody loves against the youngster that everybody thinks is overrated.

For Spain only I'll give DR a .1-.3 advantage, but it should be real close over the rest of the season with each taking their turns edging the other out in qualy. I'll have to wait to see how the first couple of races pan out before trying to guess at how that might look the rest of the year.

You may hope that happens but he was close in qualifying with Sainz, Ricciardo is known as being an incredible qualifier yet every Tom and Dick young prospect could hold their own against Ricciardo, that sort of doesn't add up.

lbennie wrote:Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

I've seen nothing yet to imply to me that Vandoorne isn't better than Verstappen, and he's certainly had more experience in cars at this point. Clearly, I'll have to alter my perception if Verstappen somehow does outperform Ricciardo on merit -- or even come very close -- but right now all we've had to judge him against is Sainz. He has been quicker than Sainz, but not by a large margin, and he has been outqualified by Sainz on several occasions. Usually the margins have been pretty close there, and there's no evidence that Sainz is particularly good in qualifying (granted, also no evidence that he isn't; they could both be, for all we know). Ricciardo has been.

pokerman wrote:

F1Oz wrote:Clearly Ricciardo should beat Verstappen - regardless of the fact that Verstappen will have had lots of simulator time and there is not much difference between the cars other than engine parameters and some aero issues - which Verstappen will no doubt relatively quickly work out.

Still think this is a silly move - perhaps should have had Verstappen do a friday FP1 for a race - but we have what we have

Verstappen has 'nothing' to lose - whereas DR does - so the pressure relatively speaking is on Dan not the other way

You say that but how much could Max take getting beat by Ricciardo on a regular basis?

Judging by how he reacted whenever Sainz finished ahead of him or was perceived to be on a better strategy than him, I'm guessing he's going to get frustrated quickly.

pokerman wrote:

RaggedMan wrote:

TypingChicane wrote:Voted 0.1-0.3 in Ricciardo's favor.
I don't think Verstappen will be troubling Ricciardo too much in quali in his first 5-10 races. Ricciardo is an absolute boss in qualifying and Verstappen needs to adapt to the new car and team first. If he stays within a margin of 0.1-0.2 this season that would be okay and better than Kvyat did anyway.

Of course, if at some point Verstappen surpasses Ricciardo (the kid is still only 18 after all), I'm sure a lot of people will have their conspiracy theories about favoritism ready.

Oh Gawd! Please don't let this turn into Webber vs. Vettel Part II. The Aussie everybody loves against the youngster that everybody thinks is overrated.

For Spain only I'll give DR a .1-.3 advantage, but it should be real close over the rest of the season with each taking their turns edging the other out in qualy. I'll have to wait to see how the first couple of races pan out before trying to guess at how that might look the rest of the year.

You may hope that happens but he was close in qualifying with Sainz, Ricciardo is known as being an incredible qualifier yet every Tom and Dick young prospect could hold their own against Ricciardo, that's sort of doesn't add up.

Where did I say I hope that it happens? My guess is just as good as anyone else's. I could be wrong and it won't bother me a bit because I'm making a guess based on limited information and don't really care who turns out to be better. I'm just going to watch how it plays out and enjoy it for what it is.

It seems to me that those who think Max is overrated have more emotionally invested in Ricciardo being better are the ones who are 'hoping' that they're right.

RaggedMan wrote:It seems to me that those who think Max is overrated have more emotionally invested in Ricciardo being better are the ones who are 'hoping' that they're right.

I agree. I think a big part of that is that some people dislike anything that smells of hype and are hoping that the bubble will burst soon.
But if a hype is "exaggerated or extravagant claims made especially in advertising or promotional material" (Free Dictionary), then perhaps people who watch the races should gather that Verstappen is past that point by now. He's there on merit.

That's not to say Verstappen won't get beaten by Ricciardo. In qualifying, he probably will. Initially, at least.

Remmirath wrote:

lbennie wrote:Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

I've seen nothing yet to imply to me that Vandoorne isn't better than Verstappen, and he's certainly had more experience in cars at this point.

I don't want to take anything away from Vandoorne's impressive debut in Bahrain, he has a bright future in F1 ahead of him, but how is qualifying 0.06 ahead of the mediocre qualifier that is Button now a benchmark for how Verstappen should fare against perhaps the best qualifier on the grid? I agree though, that half a second is way too big a gap. I feel it should be under 0.3 the first race, and under 0.2 thereafter.

lbennie wrote:Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

There's two big differences here, plus a bonus caveat:

1) Button isn't a great qualifier. Never has been. Outqualifying him is much less of an achievement than outqualifying Ricciardo.
2) Max isn't a great qualifier either, on the basis of prior record. Despite winning more races than Ocon when they were both rookies in F3, he set less than half Ocon's pole positions, and so far his margin of qualifying over Sainz is slim (after being negative last season).

Additionally, Vandoorne outqualified Button under the bogus timed-elimination system, so the result is less representative than it might have been otherwise. Button got a bad run in Q2, and wasn't able to set another time to improve. He was half a second quicker in Q1.

lbennie wrote:Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

Vandoorne was clearly slower than Button and he was the test driver. Max has never been driving a Red Bull not even as test driver

Covalent wrote:

nixxxon wrote:Ricciardo will be a lot quicker until Max adapts to his new car.
Same for Kvyat, I bet Sainz will be clearly quicker in the first few races.

I wonder who will finish ahead; Verstappen or Sainz.

Good one, I dont know. Theorically the Red Bull is the better car no doubt so Max should finish ahead, but it depends on how quickly he adapts to the RB

TypingChicane wrote:

RaggedMan wrote:It seems to me that those who think Max is overrated have more emotionally invested in Ricciardo being better are the ones who are 'hoping' that they're right.

I agree. I think a big part of that is that some people dislike anything that smells of hype and are hoping that the bubble will burst soon.

You're quite right, that is part of it; I think Verstappen gets praise for doing the ordinary and gets little if any criticism for doing badly. If Ricciardo outqualifies him badly I'm 99% sure that most people will just say Max is inexperienced, he's young, he'll learn, etc. Whereas if Max beats Ricciardo - even if it's a fluky result - everyone will be raving about how he's the best there's ever been. In short, never has a driver received so much praise for doing so little.

I also dislike Verstappen as a personality; I think he's arrogant, immature (and I never get tired of hearing people call him mature!), apparently quite political and incapable of admitting fault. I don't like his driving style either; his amazing overtakes that he gets praised for are generally either entirely ordinary, or achieved by thuggishly forcing his way past another car (or indeed passing entirely off track like he did in Abu Dhabi).

It's possible I'll like him some day - I would have said most of those same things about Vettel at one point, and I actually more-or-less like him now - but at present, I can't stand the thought of seeing more of him than I have to. The only person I can say with confidence I dislike more than Max in the paddock right now is his father, whom I blame for many of the above complaints.

Not a CT, but as we are dealing with The Helmet and Red Bull, I wonder if we will see reality or stage management?

I dont mean to the extent of giving one a slower car or telling them they can not pass tho other, but there are ways of presenting things, and other ways of presenting things.

RaggedMan wrote:

pokerman wrote:

RaggedMan wrote:

TypingChicane wrote:Voted 0.1-0.3 in Ricciardo's favor.
I don't think Verstappen will be troubling Ricciardo too much in quali in his first 5-10 races. Ricciardo is an absolute boss in qualifying and Verstappen needs to adapt to the new car and team first. If he stays within a margin of 0.1-0.2 this season that would be okay and better than Kvyat did anyway.

Of course, if at some point Verstappen surpasses Ricciardo (the kid is still only 18 after all), I'm sure a lot of people will have their conspiracy theories about favoritism ready.

Oh Gawd! Please don't let this turn into Webber vs. Vettel Part II. The Aussie everybody loves against the youngster that everybody thinks is overrated.

For Spain only I'll give DR a .1-.3 advantage, but it should be real close over the rest of the season with each taking their turns edging the other out in qualy. I'll have to wait to see how the first couple of races pan out before trying to guess at how that might look the rest of the year.

You may hope that happens but he was close in qualifying with Sainz, Ricciardo is known as being an incredible qualifier yet every Tom and Dick young prospect could hold their own against Ricciardo, that's sort of doesn't add up.

Where did I say I hope that it happens? My guess is just as good as anyone else's. I could be wrong and it won't bother me a bit because I'm making a guess based on limited information and don't really care who turns out to be better. I'm just going to watch how it plays out and enjoy it for what it is.

It seems to me that those who think Max is overrated have more emotionally invested in Ricciardo being better are the ones who are 'hoping' that they're right.

Fair enough I was thinking more that you was making an emotional stance for Max, myself I'm basing things on a logical stance.

TypingChicane wrote:

RaggedMan wrote:It seems to me that those who think Max is overrated have more emotionally invested in Ricciardo being better are the ones who are 'hoping' that they're right.

I agree. I think a big part of that is that some people dislike anything that smells of hype and are hoping that the bubble will burst soon.
But if a hype is "exaggerated or extravagant claims made especially in advertising or promotional material" (Free Dictionary), then perhaps people who watch the races should gather that Verstappen is past that point by now. He's there on merit.

That's not to say Verstappen won't get beaten by Ricciardo. In qualifying, he probably will. Initially, at least.

Remmirath wrote:

lbennie wrote:Max should be much closer than 0.5

look at vandoorne's performance in bahrain

I've seen nothing yet to imply to me that Vandoorne isn't better than Verstappen, and he's certainly had more experience in cars at this point.

I don't want to take anything away from Vandoorne's impressive debut in Bahrain, he has a bright future in F1 ahead of him, but how is qualifying 0.06 ahead of the mediocre qualifier that is Button now a benchmark for how Verstappen should fare against perhaps the best qualifier on the grid? I agree though, that half a second is way too big a gap. I feel it should be under 0.3 the first race, and under 0.2 thereafter.

Well Button is presently holding his own against Alonso whilst all we have to compare Max with is Sainz, now if Max was dominating Sainz then a stronger case could be made for him, is Sainz really a strong qualifier who could trouble the likes of Ricciardo?

When Ricciardo joined Red Bull the vast majority thought Vettel would beat him quite easily but Ricciardo might test Vettel in qualifying, such was Ricciardo's reputation, Max simply at this point doesn't have a reputation of being an outstanding qualifier.