Red Bull aren’t simply waiting for Renault to find extra performance from its hybrid-V6 power unit to help close the gap to leaders Ferrari and Mercedes.
The team believe they can close that gap, or at least the majority of it, through aerodynamic development alone.
Head of aerodynamics, Dan Fallows, knows the deficit is mainly down to the Renault power unit – an issue which has caused great tension between the two companies to the point both have threatened to quit.
However he believes they have the ability to outdevelop their rivals on the chassis side to make up a portion of the roughly eight-tenth performance gap.
“Everybody knows where our major deficit is but frankly, why we’re being outperformed is irrelevant,” he said. “We have it in our power, in the aerodynamics department, to do something about it.
“F1 has plenty of performance differentiators: there’s the driver, the power unit, the aerodynamics, the use of tyres and so on, but there’s really only one aspect over which the aero team can have a fundamental impact.
“We go into the year knowing what the deficit is and working on the basis that it’s our job to close that gap. We can do it because we have to the tools to do it, we’ve done it before and the aim is to do it again.”
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