The surprise of the season so far has to be that Red Bull is no longer the dominant force on the grid.
Rule changes including the ban on exhaust blown diffusers and the introduction of tougher front wing load tests have been a big contributing factor to the Milton Keynes squad’s drop in form.
Those aren’t the only reasons though. Now that Red Bull isn’t in a position to control races from the front their biggest weakness from last year (straight-line speed) is now even more costly. Plus credit has to be given to McLaren and Mercedes for their big steps forward.
Even though it’s not been the greatest start to the season the RB8 isn’t actually that bad a car. It certainly has less issues than the Ferrari. It could yet still be a championship contender.
Undoubtedly the single biggest factor is the ban on exhaust blown diffusers. It appears that Red Bull have lost more time due to the ban than we perhaps thought they would.
The team pioneered the system and built their car around it. They were gaining up to a second per lap from the innovation. Although the other big teams which copied it were never able to gain as much performance from it as Red Bull.
It would be wrong to say the blown diffuser was the only reason Red Bull were quick last year, but it’s probably accurate to say that the time gained from it, accounted for the time advantage it had over the nearest opposition.
Flexi-wing – The secret to Red Bull’s pace in 2010 and 2011? (© Red Bull & Getty Images).
The tougher front wing load tests have also lost Red Bull some time. Last year we regularly saw the RB7’s front wing almost scraping the ground at times. Being able to run the front wing that low to the ground brought a significant aerodynamic gain. This is something that Red Bull’s rivals found very difficult to copy.
Unlike some innovations, for example McLaren’s F-duct, it wasn’t visibly obvious how Red Bull were able to achieve this. The secrets laid within the inside of the car out of view of the opposition.
Straight line speed is still as big an issue with the RB8 as it was the RB7. However last year it wasn’t such a big issue. The RB7 had so much downforce that even with the straight line speed deficit the car was fast enough for pole position and to lead races from the front. That was the team’s strategy throughout the whole of 2011.
When you are comfortably leading a race a lack of top speed isn’t a great problem as you are not under threat from a car directly behind, or require the impetus to pull off an overtaking move on one of your rivals. When you are in the middle of pack you really need to be quick in a straight line.
During the Chinese GP we saw how big an issue it is this season for them, particularly for Sebastian. With more straight line speed it’s very possible the young German could have finished the race in a strong second place.
The Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen was able to defend his second place against Vettel comfortably thanks to a strong top speed from his car against the slower top speed of Vettel’s RB8.
Using KERS all the way down the long 1.1km back straight was enough to counter the advantage that Sebastian gained in the DRS zone.
Straight-line speed is a big issue for Red Bull in 2012 (© Red Bull & Getty Images).
Had the Red Bull had the straight-line speed of the McLaren or Mercedes, chances are he would have been able to make a pass on him sooner than he did.
What then may have happened is Vettel would have been able to build himself a gap in second place whilst Raikkonen held other cars up. As it was, Vettel was only able to pass once Kimi’s tyres had given up on him. Unfortunately for Sebastian everyone else was then able to follow him through.
Another reason for Red Bull’s demotion is the quality shown by their rivals so far this year. Never in F1 has there been such a strong group of teams at the front of the grid. Staying a big step ahead of the likes of McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus was always going to be extremely difficult feat to keep up.
They were never going to stand still. They were always likely to close the gap at some point especially with the tightness of the regulations, the fact that everyone is on the same tyres and there is now only one in-season test.
Furthermore it could be argued that underachievement by Red Bull’s rivals played a part in their dominance last year. McLaren had a dreadful pre-season whilst Ferrari were far too conservative to regularly challenge for race victories.
Mercedes were still building up to being a race winning team and Lotus’s front exhaust innovation hindered them in terms of car development during the season.
Leading both championships, McLaren look to be the team to beat in 2012. (© Vodafone McLaren Mercedes).
Back to 2012 and McLaren have started the season with the best car they’ve had for quite some time. With the technical talent Mercedes now possess it was only a matter of time before it all came good. Ross Brawn has been the man to end an Adrian Newey dominated era on two previous occasions (with Benetton and Ferrari). He might be on for the hat-trick!
Lotus has also built a much better car with much more development potential than last year.
Another problem Red Bull are going to have to contend with is having to develop Mercedes’ super DRS system now it has been declared legal. Whilst they are spending time and human resources on it Mercedes can put their resources in to other developments.
However it should be said that the RB8 isn’t a bad car. Red Bull are in the same kind of place as they were at the start of 2009 as one of the two or three chasing teams behind leaders Brawn GP. As it stands it’s still a car that is capable of podium finishes and winning a race on a good day.
Vettel told Spanish media: “The problem we have is that the balance of the car is not as good as we had last year. It’s not a question of downforce, but of ensuring that all the parts are behaving as a whole. That is what we are trying to achieve.”
He added: “I firmly believe we have a very competitive car, at the moment we are just not able to take its full potential out.”
Vettel celebrates second in Australia alongside Button (P1) and Hamilton (P2).
Clearly one of the biggest differences between the RB7 and RB8 is a lack of one lap qualifying pace. However the RB8 does have promising race pace as shown in Melbourne where Sebastian drove from sixth to second place in the race.
It appears that the RB8 works better in warmer conditions than it does in cooler conditions. The Malaysian GP was run in cooler conditions than normal due to the wet weather, and in China we saw cool track temperatures throughout the weekend.
In the dry qualifying at Sepang in the customary high track temperatures Mark Webber produced a lap that was only 0.242 seconds shy of Lewis Hamilton’s pole time. This shows that in the right conditions the RB8 can be a decent car in both one lap and race conditions.
In Bahrain with track temperatures likely to hit 50 degrees Red Bull could actually have a decent weekend.
The grid is so close at the moment that one significant development from Red Bull could see them leapfrog all of their opposition. Once they fully understand their car and in particular how to get the most out of the exhausts they could make significant progress. The team are tenths behind the pacesetters, rather than seconds. It’s very much an assailable gap.
The might of Adrian Newey has finally been challenged, but can he pull it back? (Getty Images and Red Bull).
It would take a very foolish person to underestimate the might of Adrian Newey. There have been previous seasons when a Newey designed car has started the season slow initially before turning into a title contender later in the year. 1991 and 1994 with Williams and 2005 with McLaren are all good examples of that.
Also in 2009, Brawn GP were the pacesetters for the first third of the season, but a major upgrade at Silverstone turned Red Bull into serious contenders and a regular race winner.
Red Bull just need to ensure they stay in range of the championship leaders whilst they don’t have a car to win. Despite only one podium finish in three races both Vettel and Webber are within a race victory of Hamilton in the driver’s championship.
The fact that we have seen three different race winners so far is ensuring nobody can run away with the championship at the moment. This could help the drivers who haven’t quite got the car underneath them at present.
