Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey has set low expectations for the 2015 season, all but ruling out a title challenge, despite having yet to see how their car performs on track.
The Briton, who recently took a step back from the F1 side of things at Red Bull, was still in charge of designing the RB11. However he doubts whether Renault’s power unit will have improved enough to close the gap to chief rival Mercedes.
“I think we should be realistic about our expectations for this year,” said the 56-year-old. “Mercedes have a very strong power unit, we estimate [with] somewhere around 60 horsepower [advantage] at the end of last season.
“Renault are working away very hard at eliminating that deficit, but it does take time. Power units have a very long lead-time,” he explained.
“They have a challenge ahead, which I’m confident they will meet, but they need time to achieve that.”
He says Red Bull and Renault must focus on closing the gap this year, whilst potentially securing one or two wins like they did last season – most coming as a result of Mercedes errors or reliability.
“This year will really be about continuing to try to move forward and reduce the deficit that we suffered at times last year.
“If we can manage the odd win, as we did last year, then that would be fantastic,” he said.
“But we can’t count on it. I think it’s really a season that will be very much about trying to extract the most we can and build on it for the future.”
Discussion about this post