🌎🌎Africa Getting a Grand Prix

Good morning. We are two weeks out from the Dutch Grand Prix and, if you ask me, it couldn’t come soon enough. We have seen driver decisions, FIA bans on braking systems, and clarification on regulations. All of which comes at a pivotal time on the calendar - Summer Break.

Although the teams aren’t allowed to work for 14 days straight, I think we can expect some major changes in the overall tone of the season. With 10 more races on the calendar and two weeks of rest/relaxation, I think we will see the back half of this season kick off with a bang.

-Jake Williamson

🌎 Is Red Bull Underperforming?

Red Bull’s fall from grace is a hot topic these days. The energy drink manufacturer hasn’t seen the dominance that it’s accustomed to in the past couple of championships. We, admittedly, are conflicted about this. On one hand, we don’t like to disparage any team on the grid. On the other hand, the sport was getting a bit stale with Max pulling huge leads over the rest of the pack at every single race. The sport needed a bit of racing.

Whatever you feel about the relative ‘underperformance’ of Red Bull, the fact remains that other teams are catching up. A fact that was made abundantly clear from Miami 2024 onward.

The question: is Red Bull underperforming?

This is where we start to talk about car development and setup. The Monaco GP put the RB20’s alleged car setup issues on display, namely the suspension changes for 2024. Verstappen made it clear that the RB car couldn’t take the Monaco curbs like the other competitors. A fact that Christian later confirmed in his statement, “The VCARB [RB] car is running with our suspension from last year and didn't seem to have the same issues,” he said. “So, we need to understand if it's something that we've introduced.”

The ultra stiff suspension on the RB20 sets up the car for straight line speed but sacrifices down force in the corners from excessive bouncing.

This is a problem but isn’t the whole story.

The more likely culprit is not as much Red Bull’s fall from dominance and more about the ability for other teams to catch up.

To illustrate this, let’s look at some lap time examples.

• 2023 Australia Pole time was 1:16.732 Max Verstappen

• 2024 Australia Pole time was 1:15.915 Max Verstappen

If Max had only matched his 2023 pole time in 2024, he would have qualified 8th! Narrowly beating Tsunoda in a RB.

McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes all posted faster times in 2024, RB and Aston were within 1/10th as well.

So, Max isn’t getting slower, the other teams are getting much faster.

The Law of diminishing returns

The law of diminishing returns (also known as the law of diminishing marginal productivity) states that in productive processes, increasing a factor of production by one unit, while holding all other production factors constant, will at some point return a lower unit of output per incremental unit of input

In plain English, you can only do so much before your progress slows down or reverses. We suspect that Red Bull is reaching the limits of car production and aerodynamic improvements. This is still a hunk of metal that must comply with the laws of physics.

It’s only natural that teams with a bigger gap to the front will make bigger progress jumps throughout the year.

The cause of Red Bull’s decline in relative performance clearly comes down to some combination of setup, design, and leaps in competitor development. To Red Bull it is a problem. To F1 fans, it just means the championship is heating up!

🚀Headline Sprint

🏎️FIA bans asymmetric braking: There have been incredible, albeit subtle, developments to the F1 machines this year. Significant upgrades to car floors, side pods, and front wings have changed up potential pace for Mercedes and McLaren for example. What remains unseen, however, has come under scrutiny. One particular innovation the FIA have looked at is asymmetric braking. Basically a system that allows you to apply a different braking force to each of the 4 brakes. This could allow you to pivot the car quicker through corners. This is now banned by the FIA for unknown reasons.

⚖️Carlos Signs with an overweight team: Apparently James Vowles opened up about why Carlos ultimately decided to hitch his wagon to the Williams squad. It came down to two things, according to the team boss. One, the larger investment coming from Dorilton Capital (team owner) to build out the team to be more competitive with the top teams. Two, the current car is overweight by some amount that is leaving over 4 tenths of lap time on the table. If you do the math, which I am sure Carlos did, then you can calculate that Williams would be running much higher in the field if they can chuck the extra pounds.

💸Max offered big $$ to drive with Aston: With Adrian Newey potentially in the bag for Aston Martin, speculation around Max Verstappen’s future seems to put him in Lawrence Stroll’s crosshairs. Verstappen’s contract with RB extends to 2028 but we see drivers leave early all the time. Plus, tension between Max’s dad Christian Horner along with high profile departures from the team, it isn’t inconceivable that Max would want to join a new squad that is being supplied by Honda engines starting from 2026.

🛞 Adrian Newey to Aston?

We know one team that won’t be signing Adrian Newey. McLaren is out as a home for the Aero guru.

“We’re not going to sign Adrian,” Zak Brown confirmed to BBC Sport.

So where is Newey going?

This is still the subject of much speculation, like basically everything in F1. However, the current guess from the likes of the Italian publication Autosprint is Newey will be signing with Aston Martin after a reported $100M offer to join. We should stress that this is a guess and a lot can change in the coming months.

Let’s look at some evidence that may confirm this report.

First, news from all of our favorite car journalist, Jeremy Clarkson. Among the glorious chaos of the grid at the latest British Grand Prix, Clarkson, who is a former schoolmate of Newey’s, dropped a juicy exclusive. He claims that Newey is house hunting in Oxfordshire NOT Maranello. Meaning, Newey may be setting down roots near Aston Martin, not Ferrari.

Second, Newey was reportedly given a ‘secret’ tour of Aston Martin HQ.

Adrian Newey is the brain behind the last few Red Bull machines and a major part of the energy drink manufacturers success in the last several years. After announcing his departure, Newey will be free to join any employer he sees fit starting next year. So he is doing what anyone else in his position would do, shopping offers.

So what reason do we have to doubt this $100M Aston deal is locked?

Simply put, the money is the problem. Let’s set aside the fact that Newey’s manager was apparently demanding double that huge number from any new employer and focus on the fact that Aston may be overspending on their team.

The problem for Aston revolves around the current cost cap. No team can spend more than $135 million on their program with some notable exceptions. One of which is that a team can exclude their top three team members from the budget cap. Undoubtedly, Newey’s salary will be one of the excluded, but Aston has still poached some very expensive talent as of late, causing some concern over their ability to function under the cap.

Everything is a trade off in the budget cap days. An expensive team may mean giving up certain performance related parts. So, will Stroll be making this compromise?

🏎 Sustainable Fuel

There are so many changes coming to F1 in 2026. You’ve probably heard of rule changes, team shake ups, and driver changes that take effect in 2026. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by major shift like this that usher in a new era for F1 but don’t fret, we will break down the big changes bit by bit starting with the fuel.

Most of the tectonic shifts happening in 2026 stem from the shift to hybridized cars powered by half internal combustion engines (ICE) and half electric power from batteries (like a beefed-up version of the kinetic energy recovery system already on the cars). Furthermore, the FIA has mandated the use of 100% sustainable fuels. This is our focus.

What is sustainable fuel?

Great question. Furthermore, how do we get to 100% sustainable?

There may be a misconception that completely sustainable fuel uses some magic hippy oil that is grown in sunbathed fields in Narnia. Sadly, the truth is much more boring. Sustainable fuel is still a carbon-based fuel and still burns like a normal engine. What makes it sustainable is the closed carbon loop that acts as the source of the carbon.

These new hybrid engines still burn hydrocarbons because, frankly, nothing beats it for energy density. But the carbon comes from a form of recycling. Aramco, among other fuel producers, are working on a way to capture carbon from the atmosphere and combine it with hydrogen to effectively produce recycled fuel. Brilliant huh?

Carbon capture is a technology in its infancy and is still very costly. In fact, the cost is equivalent to $300+ per barrel of energy (compared to the current $80 per barrel). F1 is confident that this will help spearhead interest in sustainable fuels across the globe thus helping reduce costs over time.

“This technology, once it’s deployed, has a learning curve and we expect those costs to come down to much more reasonable and practical costs.” - F1’s chief technology officer Pat Symonds

The long-term vision here is to remove fossil fuel based carbon altogether. By producing carbon from food waste or algae, for example, a closed carbon loop can be relied on for sustainable fuels without the use of dead dinosaurs. This is also new tech and, currently, is very energy intensive itself. So, potato fueled F1 engines may be farther off.

What you need to know for now is that F1 is moving to 100% sustainable fuels for the cars on the grid starting in 2026 and will, no doubt, set their sights on a fully sustainable fuel-based series in the near future.

💨 Hot Laps

Will Buxton’s choices for livery throwbacks: A quick tour through the team’s best liveries.

A press day at the latest Red Bull powertrain facility that shares has the Ford logo emblazoned right alongside the energy drink brand.

17-year-old Kimi Antonelli has reportedly signed with Mercedes and the decision will be announced before September.

America isn’t the only place that has enthusiasm for F1. The renewed global interest has reach Africa and apparently Rwanda could reach advanced talks for a GP.

🛞Marbles

Random links from the authors not always car related

✅ Gamers fear a recent Warzone leak could make the massive game un-fun for awhile.

✅Anyone want in on entering this thing into an endurance race with me? :)

✅Get outside of the city and go see the peak of the Perseid Meteor shower!

✅Not that anyone is counting, but, what do you think wins between total medal count and number of golds?

✅A cool project that shows how all roads in Europe lead to Rome - among other cool city maps.

🤯Brain Food

Which F1 driver holds the current record for total race starts?

📖Answer

Fernando Alonso with 391 race starts!

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