…I know it won’t last but after the last four years of domination there’s a glimmer of hope it may not go their way this year!

Just hope the ‘fix’ doesn’t come till mid-season, when hopefully they’ll be too far behind.

Could go either way right now. Ricardo was beginning too look a bit speedy the other day before it started going wrong again.

Clearly lots going on behind the scenes, they’re not the sort of team to race a car with bodged cooling slats on it

they’re not the sort of team to race a car with bodged cooling slats on it

They may have to – this was their fix from yesterday and it still hasn’t worked…

That’s what I mean, I don’t believe for a minute that what was seen at the test is a real fix.

Even their exhaust isn’t straight – noobs.

I think they’re going to have issues for a while. The Mercedes looks rapid.

Even Marusia were lapping faster than Red Bull !

Cant wait till it starts, who knows what will happen. Never mind the overheating issues, I reckon some may run out of fuel, or have to slow down to avoid doing so.

Lets pray this season is mixed. Renaults engines are struggling too 😀

The Red Bull uses a Renault engine

Even Marusia were lapping faster than Red Bull !

Apart from when they started putting some laps together

I can see them being up near the front when the season starts. They have one of the best, if not the best designer in Newey and I’ve no doubt Renault will pull something out of the hat. I’ve struggled liking them over the past 4 seasons because they have been so dominant, same as Ferrari when Schumacher was there. I’m hoping this season turns into a monumental scrap for the drivers and constructors championship having races where drivers are racing to the last lap. Here’s to hoping.

I can see them being up near the front when the season starts.

On current evidence they’re going to have to pull some miracle out of the bag to manage that – right now they’re about where Mercedes were after the first test, or maybe not even that far in terms of testing and development. I’m struggling to see them doing much more at Melbourne than an extended test session.

right now they’re about where Mercedes were after the first test

They’re nowhere near that point:

“It took Red Bull 150 minutes to get him on the track, after which Vettel stopped four corners into his lap.
When the team attempted to send him out again, the car broke down in the pit lane. That was it for the day.”
BBC Sport
Seems it’s not all related to the engine seeing as…
“Not all the Renault teams struggled on day three of the final Bahrain test, however.
Kvyat did 81 laps and Caterham’s Marcus Ericcson 117, including a full race-distance simulation, and ran trouble-free all day.”

their sandbagging 😉

Ball bagging more like, that’s pretty serious cutting gaping holes in your engine cover like that, I think aero testing has gone right out the window, I’m not sure what they have done wrong but the other Renault teams aren’t suffering so bad, I do know what the problem was in the first week in Bahrain but to not manage a lap today is unbelievable !!

You can’t rule them out yet though, Friday free practice in Melbourne in two weeks could be all they need to get back on top when the solve this current issue, one thing is certain they will apply maximum effort to get it sorted and they are no slouches and very determined.

Williams are doing a damn fine job, mclaren seem capable of spoiling the party too, Fifi will be very competitive and Ferrari are defo sandbagging.

I’m still not sure RB have done enough running to uncover all the problems they may have, or to isolate them anyway. Their problems with the new power trains have kinda been foreshadowed by their previous issues with KERS. Seems that the packaging of the systems in their cars isn’t entirely to Renault’s liking. But this struggle will with hindsight be good for their public profile – having it too easy doesn’t win you many fans.

When the cars were all launched I saw a few comments in the media about the size of the sidepods and radiator inlets on the Caterham and it seems like they are the only team to be able to get on top of an engine that seems to have a massive cooling requirement. While at Red Bull Adrian Newey has done his usual approach of designing a very marginal car to suit the aero setup that they want to use and it’s backfired on him.

I’ll be happy this season if Williams do well, it’s about time they got back to winning ways and they’ve got rid of Mr Potatohead.

Don’t worry, Bernie’s rigged it so that they win the Championship on the final race, having struggled all season.

Adrian Newey may be the best designer but the problems they’re having are not design issues. They’re issues around putting the design into practice. It’ll get fixed, but they’re loosing precious test time and will start the season on the back foot. Will be interesting to see how Vettell does when he’s not in the fastest/best car. I might have to watch this season. Well, the first half at least before it reverts to being metronomically boring again.

Would it be tactical to be poor at the start of the season, see the opositions form and apply for “updates” on reliability grounds given that you fund 4 cars on the grid. (See tyres lsst year)
*takes tin foil hat off*

Conflicting emotions on this. On the one hand, Red Bull can suck it. On the other Kobasmashi has returned and ended up in a car with the same shitty engine. 😡

I swear there was a guy on here that predicted this about 4 to 5 months ago….

Well done to that guy!

– RB won’t have the best car out of the box and
will struggle with cooling due to the usual tight
packaging but will catch up dramatically through
the season

2 months ago 😉

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/f1-rule-changes-for-2014#post-5566900

The most annoying thing is the complete lack of any technical reporting at the BBC, now that they’ve given Gary Anderson the boot. Is there any other websites that have good insight to whats going on?

Yes, the f1technical.net car forums. It’s petty geeky though rather than news so you do need to be keen but fit example they had the mclaren f-duct discussion way before it was public knowledge.

For example, this thread has all the specific problems rb are having listed out

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=17681&start=675

The engine settings had to be finalised and fixed on friday so the Renault powered cars could be stuffed.

However they applied for an extension so I wonder if Bernie & Jean will grant them it as the Mercedes teams sure aren’t going to vote in favour of it.

I read an interesting article that suggested the relative lack of cohesion at RBR was, if not the whole issue, then at least part of it. Particularly with the massively more complex systems this year. I.e. Red Bull make the car – chassis, aero, etc. – while Renault, separately and elsewhere, make the engine powertrain. Then, later on, plonk one inside the other. On the other hand, Mercedes and Ferrari develop the car as a whole – engine, chassis, aero all together (different departments, of course, but all working much more closely to creat the whole car).

I read somewhere that Renault have had such a easy time of late that they have paid off people in the the engine R&D department. These new rules have came along and they ain’t got the knowledge of expertise of Merc or the jumping horse.

Renault had got the teams to build their own kers up to this year and with the development restrictions had reduced the size of the engine team.

So it’s a combination of having to catch up on energy recovery plus probably not having everyone in place to do that.

Though as has been pointed out repeatedly, not all Renault teams are struggling as badly as red bull.

From what’s being written so far though, it sounds like the have a fast (unsurprisingly) car but that it’s horribly unreliable at least in part because of how they’ve designed it right at the limit.

If so, the question is when will they become reliable and will they have spent too long getting there to develop the car at the necessary rate to remain competitive through the season.

It’ll be great watching how well Williams do against Mercedes and McLaren

It’s also going to be fun seeing Vettel spitting his dummy – 4 time WDC but never had a bad car in that time

I bet Webber has a sly grin on his face right now 🙂

I’d really like to see Massa give Alonso a kicking as well

Sadly I don’t have high hopes for Williams, they’ve got a habit of looking quite good pre-season.

Could this actually be the making of Vettel? 4x Champ wrestling like hell for good results? could go either way imo

Damn right Webber will be chuffed! He couldn’t will the championship when he had the best car year after year, he’d look well shit this season 😉

I’m a big Williams fan – and during recent promising pre-season testing, they’ve been quick, but not like this – they are consistently quick and reliable

I don’t have huge hopes for Massa – but it’d be good if he does well

Bottas though – very promising

My main concern is whether Williams can keep up the development race…

Very well put boltonjon. Completely agree.

A bit of variety would be good and as per above I’d love to see Williams have a decent run, they need it.

Given the restrictions on testing time the Red Bull issues which have wasted so much of the time to date are a shocker, there’s only so much you can get from simulations, engine rigs and wind tunnel testing. Tensions must be running high, these are teams full of big egos being paid mega bucks.

boltonjon – Member

I’m a big Williams fan – and during recent promising pre-season testing, they’ve been quick, but not like this – they are consistently quick and reliable

I don’t have huge hopes for Massa – but it’d be good if he does well

Bottas though – very promising

My main concern is whether Williams can keep up the development race…

I really hope so, the packaging on their car looks amazingly tight. Hopefully lead to good diffuser and therefore tyre performance.

Williams have had very tight rear packaging (!) for the last couple of years with their tiny gearbox. Doesn’t seem to have helped so I wouldn’t be predicting form based on that.

From what I’ve heard and from what someone I know who used to work at Williams said, I reckon they needed a good shakeup and that’s what they’ve had recently and it looks like they have come up with a half decent car. As above though, development is key and I wouldn’t expect Williams to have the budget for that this season but hopefully they can get some good points early on.

As to the RB struggles, didn’t Vettel only just win in 2010? Hardly had the best car all season. I’m not fully convinced yet that Vettel is the equal of Alonso at his best yet simply because we’ve not really had a direct comparison but it wouldn’t amaze me if he was.

Fingers crossed it’ll be another 2010 with the unexpected, unpredictable racing and swings in form plus several drivers in it.

clubber – Member

Williams have had very tight rear packaging (!) for the last couple of years with their tiny gearbox. Doesn’t seem to have helped so I wouldn’t be predicting form based on that.

From what I’ve heard and from what someone I know who used to work at Williams said, I reckon they needed a good shakeup and that’s what they’ve had recently and it looks like they have come up with a half decent car. As above though, development is key and I wouldn’t expect Williams to have the budget for that this season but hopefully they can get some good points early on.

Yes the gearbox is a big part of it, but they also look to have a clever turbo/ER setup also.
One thing I have noticed is that they appear to have done very little in the way of updates since Jerez. Wonder if they’ll have anything new for Melbourne, or if they’ll be going for stability?

Anyway, Claire looks to be doing a good job, Smedley + two decent drivers and new big name sponsor as well. They were fastest on aggregate and did the most laps in Bahrain, so I’m really hoping they do well.

I think the RB10 will be great once they’ve got their power unit issues sorted. Button and Hamilton at least have both said it’s going to be a stonker.

They need to get back to the blue, yellow and white livery though!

If it looks anything like the leaked livery I’ll be happy.

I’m of the understanding that Massa’s headline time was done on the super-dooper soft’s and very little fuel, whereas the Merc’s top time was on harder compound with fuel, so there may still be an embarrassing time differential with a level playing field/set-up’s.

No Gary Anderson on the BBC doesn’t help. Lap times per se don’t make much sense in testing, whereas looking at sector times is possibly more revealing. I haven’t looked for timing boards with splits, are there any still viewable?

slackalice – Member

I’m of the understanding that Massa’s headline time was done on the super-dooper soft’s and very little fuel, whereas the Merc’s top time was on harder compound with fuel, so there may still be an embarrassing time differential with a level playing field/set-up’s.

No Gary Anderson on the BBC doesn’t help. Lap times per se don’t make much sense in testing, whereas looking at sector times is possibly more revealing. I haven’t looked for timing boards with splits, are there any still viewable?
Yes could be.

Shame about Anderson, I was hoping they’d replace him with Scarbs or Somers but I think they’ve got an ex-driver instead (mcnish).