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Sergio is going through his Ruben stage. He's not as fast as his teammate, so trying harder only makes him slower.

I feel so bad for Checo. Seeing people bash him over his poor performance actually hurts me a little. He's honestly not the best out there, but he is by far not the worst too. In my opinion, he earned his spot in RB, but it's clearly true he's had some problems lately. But seeing people tell him he didn't earn his RB seat is sad. Genuinely sad. I'm praying for his monstrous comeback to tell all his haters "F U".

Max takes, excuse my American racing term, "loose is fast" to another level. The way he passively observes oversteer then corrects the car and pulls it to where he wants it is just awesome to see and the reason I think he'll be a winner in other series when he gets tired of winning in F1.

This video wasn't even aimed mainly at RB suspension, but it explained the Anti-Dive/Squat better than any podcast I have heard in the last 2 years, because of the actual explanation and visuals. Same as the other content, I haven't purposely looked for the explanation, it simply gets mentioned while talking about something else. But this did it 100%! 👍

2:32 This can't be said often enough. Red Bull isn't developing the car *for* Max Verstappen. They are developing the car *for* the lowest lap times. Schumi used to rotate his car through the corners like Max does, but even more so, because tyres in his era were a lot less delicate.

Max is so versatile we need him to run a few laps in every car after the season is over to see who had the true fastest car. This should be an annual tradition and if anyone has the fastest car but hasn't won the WCC they get the Golden Raspberry for 'Most Okay-est Formula One Drivers'.

Nice to see someone who appreciates Max’s talent rather than just say he has the fastest car… Newey likes pointy cars as they are usually faster that way, but to make the most out of them you need a driver who can drive it and handle it.

People always seem to reduce performance to cars or drivers, but tend to forget car-driver suitability.

Max being able to deal with the anti-dive taking away the feel of the can better than Perez actually makes a lot of sense given how much sim racing max does.

The RB is like a fighter jet where they intentionally make it an unstable design thus reducing stability to increase manoeuvrability. The way Max is able to control the car despite this is amazing

"I actually think many of the drivers would have the same issues as Perez" This is key in my opinion. I don't know why most people think that a fast car guarantees wins and poles as if it's not incredibly tricky to drive that car. It takes a robot like Max to get the most out of that car yet everyone seems to think that Danny Ric, or Lando, or Charles or whatever will be fighting with Max for wins and poles. As a Checo fan I'll say that Max will absolutely demolish ANY driver. Checo isn't the terrible driver most people make him out to be. He's been in the top 4 of the WDC since 2020 so you better think twice about getting your favorite driver into that second RedBull seat cause IMO you are gonna have a rude awakening like most of us Checo fans had.

did we all forget he was the original tire whisperer ??

So the reason Max is better is because of his sim-racing. To be clear, sim-racing requires the driver to pick up clues visually and through multi-purpose force-feedback devices; clues which would normally be provided by the movement of the car. No rig, no matter how expensive or complete, can simulate every feeling in the car. The lack of feedback from anti-squat and anti-dive make a car feel a lot more like a sim-rig than a lively real-life car. So my solution for Perez is to take a Driver61 Sim-Racing Master Class course as I did.

This video perfectly sums up what Checo’s season has consisted of. Just a car that’s not suited for his style but he’s paired with a monster capable of driving anything. Checo def has the qualities of a champion under a car suited for him but unfortunately RB will never go in that direction because they know that whatever rocket is built to be the fastest Max is the only capable one of driving it.

Excellent stuff, Scott. Wish less knowledgeable folks would stop dissing Pérez because they think he's "shyte". Watching Max "riding" those S's at Suzuka this morning while pulling almost 6G was quite something to behold. It's confidence on a entirely different level (compared to pretty much the rest of the field) that sets him apart.

I think Verstappen having less need for braking feel comes from the amount of sim racing he does, because in sim racing you have no braking feel at all (yes, there are force feedback braking pedals but those are extremely uncommon).

as much as i like and support checo it’s a pain to watch his races lately, he is putting too much pressure on himself and that’s what makes him overshoot a little. I admire him because only by his hard work and long journey he made it to the top, let’s see and hope for the second place in the drivers standings

Most have no clue how good Checo is, and think his success is just from RB and/or the RB19. But how many other drivers can you name with as many career podium finishes? Or how many other drivers have finished in the Top 10 as often as he has? There aren't many... but look it up for yourself. That's why RB picked him up in the first place.

Perez is a very capable driver in the right car but he can’t handle a car which has any hint of oversteer. I remember when his move to Red Bull got announced, one of the Racing Point engineers made the point that he would have massive issues with the Red Bull for this reason

I think Riciardo was most similar to Max in that he likes a sharp front. Probably the best explanation that they were almost equally quick in the previous RB.

Timing of this video is impeccable. His race today was a disgrace

The first quote from Perez pretty much says it all i think ... He has to think about how to drive which means it doesnt come naturally and with Max outperforming him by such a large margin he starts to over think things and make mistakes and wrong choises

Here's a question: IF the RB set up has less feel for Perez but Max can adapt to that how much of that is Max spending so much time Sim Racing? When Sim or I Racing the big difference actually being on the track most driver claim is the 'feel' as you don't get the feedback. Has Sim Racing helped Max drive with less feel or reduced feel?

Perez prefers an understeering car, but understeering cars are in general slower than oversteering cars to which Perez cannot adopt to.

In short, Checo likes a car with more understeer and Max likes oversteer. Oversteer gives you more control over the car which helps you for a example get the temprature in the tires faster(which is why Checo falls behind in qualify), but is also riskier and more prone to mistakes. But Max is very good with a car with alot of oversteer so he wont make those mistakes.

I also would think the superior amount of time max puts into sim racing helps him be more confident with a car with less feel and allows him to better use his other senses to determine how much break throttle and steering input the cars needs to stay stable.

People really downplay Max's achievements and act like all the drivers would be capable of doing the same in that car without realizing how tricky it is to drive for it to be as fast as it is. Even Albon says that Max is the most gifted driver he's ever raced against. He also said that him liking a very sharp car is unlike most drivers. Guy's simply insanely good.

as a past ski racer : when you keep making the same mistakes on the race course and fail to improve your FIS points/results/standings. it often represented burnout from trying to hard. so our coaches would recommend taking a break from competition and go free skiing and take your mind off your problems and just enjoy the fun aspect of skiing for a week or so and then start training on the hill with the basics /skills you have learned then move on to training on race course/gates until you have a handle on the mistakes you were making while racing then give it another try. it can take awhile even another race season or two to hopefully make a breakthru on the skills or mental/confidence needed to advance to a higher level. daunting it is 😳

"just proves how good Max really is..."

I'm sure I remember an interview years ago with Eddie Irvine, when he was Schumacher's teammate. He said Ferrari relied on Schumacher's feedback to develop the car not his so the car suited Schumacher's driving style not Irvine's. Irvine said he started to do better when he gave up trying to get a car to suit him but instead worked on changing his driving style to be more similar to Schumacher's.

Aged like fine wine

Watching this after the japanes gp is funny

So many people don’t realize Newey’s so much more than aerodynamicist. There’s essentially no part of the car he doesn’t have a major design input on. He seems to literally understand everything. That’s why his cars are so complete.

People dont realise that the RB might be a fast car but its Max extracting that pace

Love this channel, i always look the onboards to look the little details in their driving style!

Technically speaking, the statement you made regarding anti-dive at 4:25 is wrong. If the vertical forces would go through the pull rod, it would cause the springs to compress resulting in dive. Instead, anti-dive is a method where the some of the vertical forces are conveyed through the wishbones itself, counteracting some of the load transfer during deceleration. Furthermore, in your explanation at 3:58 pitch and heave seem the same. Pitch is when the vehicle rotates forward, causing compression on the front springs and extension on the rear springs. Heave is when both axles move in phase, lifting or lowering the full car without rotating it.

Focusing on suspension instead of downforce makes Newey look like he's playing backgammon while other designers are busy figuring out how to use their bishop.

IF Checo finishes second in the drivers championship all this talk about his "struggles" won't matter. Finishing second place 0.001 seconds behind or 1 point behind first still means you are second. Also, no matter what Helmut, Reb Bull or Max says they don't really want their drivers that close and fighting each other anyways as long as they win both championships.

Max is the kinda guy where no matter how he's feeling, from the get go he will maximise the track and full throttle even if it's super risky. He's done this all his life and his dad was very extreme with baking this into max. If you watch his karting onboards, watch his sim racing, and of course watch his F1 onboards, as soon as he leaves the pit lane he smashes the throttle almost recklessly depending on who you ask, but gets up to the limit very quick. He aint scared of crashing, he don't mind going deep into a corner, he don't even mind on the rare occasion he leaves the track, at least he has that knowledge and then can spend the rest of the session at 98% just honing being smooth with it all. Most other drivers were told "smooth is fast", "build up slowly" etc, which I agree with in ways, but they were made to practice the art of being super smooth before the art of ragging a car to it's very limit. Even in the F1 game the guy over the radio says something like "take it easy for the first few laps", and you do need to an extent, but it feels like it discourages you from finding that o so important limit. I agree with those things in ways and for particular tracks, but the act of practicing being smooth first and building up slowly means in a world were track time is at a premium, you are literally wasting time being smooth when you could be honing that art of car control so you can deal with any car on any track in any situation right from the get go. Perhaps this will change for the sim racing generation where track time isn't at a premium, but yeah. Smash it first, find the limit asap, then worry about being smooth. This ultimately makes you the faster driver, and... you look really good on track lol, unless you mess up a lot.. But again, practice messing up a lot like max and then eventually you won''t lol. At the end of the day, Max has significantly more practice in raw car control and this is why he's better at the end of the day. Exact same with Alonso, Schumacher, Hamilton, Norris, Leclerc, etc. Actually, I'd argue Leclerc is probably just as good if not better. That guy is extremely fast in terms of finding the limit hence why he's probably the best qualifier on the grid. In contrast, a driver like checo is smooth first, limit later, and this goes to show, right? If you think about it, relative to max, Checo hasn't practiced this much, and it means more often than not he doesn't find the limit at all. It's why you always see checo come alive usually in the second stint of the race. He's literally had enough practice by that point. Max don't need that practice in the end.

The anti dive is primarily used to keep the front ride height consistent throughout the lap. But it does not put a great amount of heat into the tires, which is why both drivers struggle a bit in some qualys.

I've seen a lot of British Paparazzi F1 channels, so I've been ignoring a lot of them. So I almost missed out on your channel. Glad I checked your video and now I subscribed :-) making sure not to miss out.

Commenting after the Japanese GP, I see.

That was brilliant and enlightening! Thank you

On the topic of weight transfer and corner exit grip: Sergio is great at knowing just how much throttle to apply, but doesn't necessarily help him to mitigate the los of information through ant-squat geometry. If that's what he was using as reference for grip levels, he is potentially going to struggle precisely because it was the centre piece of his driving style

I'd love a video like this about Stroll vs Alonso. Also I think it says a lot about how good your videos are when Heinz Harold Frentzen reccomends them to people!

This is very interesting! So basically, the car has been developed in a way to be potentially faster, but a trade-off is that the driver loses some feedback during braking and acceleration (since the car doesn't pitch as much). This is actually extremely advantageous for Max. Max does a ton of sim racing and can drive a car to its limits in an environment where G forces are completely removed. He has learned to feel where the grip is with vision, steering feel and audio cues. A "normal driver" that hasn't grown up sim racing that much will have a much heavier reliance on feeling for grip by how the car's feedback is - how it pitches and rolls - feedback cues that Max never needed in order to be fast. I can see Lewis Hamilton struggling the same way, as he is also a driver that relies on the traditional senses to feel for grip (he spends very little time in the sim).

Very interesting video! This explanation only makes it more commendable how Max seems to drive with 0 sweat in a car like this. kudos to him

Thank you for your video, quality as usual. So you have now done an analysis of Sergio's and of Danial's driving styles when they are struggling. I would love you to do a video putting forward your opinion on whether Danial could drive the Redbull. Yes I am a fan of Danial and his time at McLaren was hard to watch. I would live to see him back at Redbull but fear he has lost his touch. I am sure many of Danial's fans have the same fear.

Can you do a video on how Checo was able to beat Max in the beginning of the season vs what is going on now? How was the car different and did Red Bull build the car to suit Max’s driving style. It seems like they started on the same page but something happened to where Perez’s style was not taken in to account in the car’s development

Makes me think that if Max has Lewis' car, he would probably still be leading the driver's championship because from what I've heard from Lewis and George about the W14, the car is very front positive and that seems to be their biggest problem with it.

Wow. Exceedingly clear breakdown. Thank you!

He’s still P2 in the championship. He makes errors on Friday and Saturday but he usually makes up for it on Sunday when it counts.

The thing is Max usualy goes longer on his tires than Checo

I think Red Bull have developed the car to suit Max because Max has been able to get more out of the initial design. What I mean by that is, Max was able to maximise the initial car design more than Perez so they carried on developing it that way as that way is working.

I think you totally cracked it! I think this is going to be a more common issue as engineers find ways to make the cars perform higher. SOOO in a nutshell - you've got a car that is super fast, turns fast, but doesn't FEEL good. Well, if you are driver who SIMs alot (i.e. Max) you don't rely on the FEEL as much. You just SIM and correct based on more visual cues and less on how you feel momentum and car handling. This is going to be a struggle for anyone who's driving isn't connected as much to visual cues. I think Max and Lando can handle things like slippery exits and correction due to having to do it more with SIM racing, but it going to be harder for any driver who is trying to sense the way the car feels. These young drivers who grew up on Simulations are going to be able beat these other drivers because when you aren't as concerned about the feel of the car you can adjust faster and push the car harder. If you look at the races from this point of view it absolutely explains why Max is a beast and Checo is floundering - it also explains why Lando and Piastri are excelling with a car that a seasoned driver like Ricardo struggled with. Fascinating.

I had wondered why he was struggling. Thanks man. Your awesome.

checo is going through what barrichello faced alongside peak schumacher, that's it. almost any other driver in racing history would be obliterated by verstappen. don't get me wrong, perez is a VERY GOOD driver, a world class one (as you correctly mentioned in the beggining of your video). but being very good (berger vs senna and bottas vs hamilton, for example) is not enough when your teammate is one of the best of all times.

being adaptable is the key of f1's champions. they never have a bad season because of the car not suiting their style.

Max being a sim driver merchant and just not needing to be as aware of the actual car feel makes a lot of sense now, he's driving that redbull like you would in a sum, not needing to worry about feel and the cars behaviour, just assume it will work and go through your routine. It really makes sense when you think about how he doesn't like to engage with other drivers as feel and instinct are paramount to engaging in wheel to wheel battles. This makes so much sense! Thanks Scott for explaining this.

Amazing content, keep it up. :)

Like the Race podcast said, If developing and setting up RB19 more towards Verstappen’s channel of driving makes it as dominant as it’s been where he can win both championships pretty much on his own, why in any way would they sacrifice that performance just for Perez to catch up

I’d say some of it may be how each driver deals with perception. Max is a huge sim-rig racer on the side, so I’m sure he’s plenty comfortable taking purely visual queues for certain things. Sergio probably takes a lot more from the feel of the physical responses the car gives him, which makes him really strong on road courses and simultaneously weaker in a car that takes the feel away from him. But that’s all speculation.

This reminded me of a fighter jet. They are built to be naturally unstable, but they are stabilized by computer during "normal" flight. This gives and advantage in quick maneuvering the fighter during situations that they need to be more agile, during a dog fight or evading missiles.

I got a notification for this video at the exact moment checo took out k-mag today. Impeccable timing

Perhaps the reason Max relies on the simulator more than other drivers is as a means to train himself to drive on the limit with limited feedback from the front brake/suspension as a result of the anti-dive muting the real world feedback he gets in races.

This makes me wonder if Max's experience in sims is part of why he is so far ahead. As this video mentions anti-dive and anti-squat take away feeling of the car, but equally so does driving in a sim. Sims deprive you of your feel of the car and force you to pay attention to different characteristics, so Sergio may need a personal sim rig to learn how to feel these cars better

this is a really solid take that i appreciate. i've been thinking about it and really feel that, while the RB is one hell of a rocket ship, it's one that's difficult to drive. and RB is lucky to have the likes of Max at the wheel. i don't think that Checo's performance is an indication of him washing out so much as it's an indication of how difficult the car is to drive and just how good Max is. i'm so curious to know how other drivers would fare in the RB this year and who would come out on top.

Driver 61 you are the best UKpostsr I’ve seen

It's hard to be a teammate of Max, because he is nearly perfect this season. But there is no excuse for Checo's lack of quali-pace in a car that is superior on most tracks. That has cost him a couple of podiums and points for the team.

Helmut Marco said it best, he's fighting issues within himself. He needs to work out what he's doing in present day as well as future plans, because it's obviously not going the route in which he or RBR intends it to.

Can u plz make a video on Rubens Barrichello?? I see a lotta clueless ppl who underestimate him.. While he was good af on the rain and was a setup master.

I think that Max's sim racing helps with him being able to deal without the natural racing feel. In sim racing the feeling is different so he's able to cope with different feelings.

We'll never know until max has an elite team mate, I'd d rate perez at a B+ on his best day

It's clear when you see that most of his career bested his teamates in top speed traps, his driving style is really etched in his body as most of this cars had the same balance characteristics. Even as a mexican myself, I agree still he needs to deal with it or move on, he can only thrive in a tailor made car that redbull can't afford to give him.

8 min video, monetized with ads, 3 native ads, and a missed video link box (what were you pointing at?). nice work

great video!

I often wonder if Lando or Oscar could drive that car almost as well as Max? I doesn't seem like Ricardo, who had significant issues with the McLaren, would be any better with the car than Checo. Twice now, Checo has been really good with the car early in the season, then had progressively more problems as upgrades made it less drivable for him. The upgrades only result in a faster car for Max. Not sure if anybody else could deal with them.

This is what I’ve been saying. Yes the RB is considered the best car.. but you ALSO have to be the best driver. If Sergio is paired with let’s stay Lance Stroll.. RB would be P3/P4 championship

Nice explanation and it is a lot on tbr driver to make the car do what it does every weekend

Great analysis as always Scott, can’t join the giveaway as the website only accepts Mastercard and I only have visa 😢

Adrian Newey is such a legend. I wonder if his brain every switches off. Pair him with a Max or a Seb and you end up with such one-sided championships

My friends and I do a lot of track days. I am almost always faster in the slower corners. Part of that is I think due to my chronic anxiety and how it affects the higher speed, and potentially more dangerous, corners. I do see that Checo is more reserved. Sometimes that is indicative of a hard working person that has an underlying fear/anxiety. Unfortunately, higher speed corners are more important for overall lap times When I am on my opioid medication, my chronic anxiety is lower, and I’m able to be more aggressive at high speed corners. My lap times and passing ability also improve on the meds I do a lot of sim racing and i’m faster on the sim since i don’t have the fear of crashing. My chronic anxiety and focus is rooted from childhood trauma

Even verstappen isn’t happy with the balance of the car, yet he continues to get faster & faster, he just adaps to anything, verstappen could win in any other sports series, nascar, wec, rally, lemans, anything you name it, max can do it

I find this channel's analysis more practical and sensible than the Formula1 channel's "expert analysis"

so you explaind Checo how to drive now hes gonna Dominate Max

He's feeling the Max effect. If you don't know the Max effect, it's the effect Max has on his teammates where he utterly dominates them to the point of them losing their confidence and starting to drive like absolute rookies.

Restricting the F1 contest to Mastercard holders only is completely bonkers.

Perez is much like Sainz very calculated, gentle, methodical and not reckless. However if you see both Max and Leclerc they have high octane driving style, they take more risks and are mostly reckless in a good way. That is the difference and that's why both are successful in their respective teams. The technicals are just a eye wash as both drivers in their respective teams drive the same package.

Another thing is that Checo outside the weekend has the head completely outside racing while Max eats and sleeps in the sim

Mclaren also has the same setup as redbull and is probably one of the reasons why there able to gain much more performance as well from starting the year from the back. Like redbull they seems to also know about what to do with there suspension so Mclaren could be super fast next year

Hamilton has a similar problem that his co-driver doesn't feel. It's the new generation of pilots : The Gran Turismo generation. Older pilots drive the car by feeling what the vehicle does. At the same time, the new generation follows what they see the car doing and adapts (Verstappen said something similar about his driving style recently). During COVID-19, when I saw all the young pilots doing YT streaming E-Sports, I realized it was a new generation of pilots. I'm also astonished by the results of some of the YT Simracers, switching to the real world and being so good immediately.

Faster car equals harder to drive. I think this is shown often with the greatest drivers they manage to extract the most out of the car leaving their teammate far behind. For this reason I think the field has become closer because the cars are slower nowadays and with overall faster cars fewer drivers will be able to get the most out the car they drive. Anyway I think Verstappen destroys "it's all about the car" argument like it's still the driver that has to extract the performance out of the car. Imagine if Perez was number one in RB with this car the RB car would appear slow and almost not competitive for wins.

Very similar to Lewis and Russell last year when Lewis was trying to beat Russell but Lewis’s ability wasn’t enough.

I think Max putting a lot of time in the sim and esports in general has helped him deal with a car with less feel.

Back when Colin Chapman introduced the anti-dive/anti-squat into F1 through the Lotus 72 the drivers didn't like and find it quite complicated to set up to the point they got rid of it quickly and got back to normal suspension

Probably the Sergio Perez part of the driving style.

Red Bull could design a car tailor make it to suit Perez, and Verstappen would still be quicker in it on almost every circuit on the calendar. There's a talent gap few racing analysts are willing to recognize, and rest assured, even with the car perfectly suiting Perez, he would be slower in comparison to other drivers on the grid, because tailoring the car to suit his abilities would make it slower overall. The key is adaptability and Max has that in spades.

4:46 wait a moment... to my knowledge anti squat is, when during compression the rear axle doesn't move straight up, but also to the rear. So under acceleration, the car can't squat, because the forward force from the wheels opposes the rearwards movement, that squatting would cause. Now that being said, the suspension of this car seems to have front attachment points of the upper wishbone lower than the rear attachment point. That means, under compression, the rear axle moves towards the front. This configuration is the opposite of anti squat, it makes the suspension softer to squat!

I think sim racing takes away the fear factor to push harder. There is no damage mechanical or physical and therefore no damage cost either. The result is feedback that you can apply to the race car with more confidence.