Red Bull’s chief designer Adrian Newey believes the new engines will present a serious challenge at the start of the 2014 season, particularly concerning reliability.
The power units, which encompass two energy systems, must last an average of 4.4 races as each driver will be limited to just five units next year.
That, combined with the fact they’re completely new, will likely see many retirements at the start of the season and penalties at the end as drivers take on additional units.
Newey expects the engines will play a major role in the pecking order.
“Certainly the regulation changes are engine-dominated,” said the Briton during a press conference on Wednesday.
“It’s not at all clear at the moment whether one of the three manufacturers we have next year have come up with a better product than the other two from both a performance point of view and also reliability, which could be quite a concern at the start of the season, certainly.
“So it’s very hard to judge where we’ll be at the start of the year.”
The engines aren’t the only thing that’s changing. The aerodynamic regulations have also been revised.
“We’ve also got some quite significant aerodynamic regulation changes, though not nearly as big as the ones we had in 2009, but still, by normal year-to-year standards they’re very big changes.”
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