RED BULL RB14

Will this be the first Red Bull of the hybrid era to go properly wheel-to-wheel with Mercedes, or yet another to emerge from Milton Keynes half-baked?

To have any chance of winning the world championship this year, Red Bull must start the Formula 1 season strongly. It threw away 2017 through weak initial performance and poor late-season reliability, but on the positive side it demonstrated that it has the infrastructure to overcome these problems. We must wait until the Barcelona test to see the rear in detail. Since the diffuser is one of the dominant components in the aerodynamic package, it will be interesting to see what Red Bull has come up with. Last year at the first test I said I didn’t see the ‘wow’ factor with the RB13, and I have to say I also expected more this year. There’s no standout component optimisation that I can see.

The other worry for Red Bull is where the engine package is at in terms of power and reliability. Renault must unlock more one-lap power to challenge Mercedes and Ferrari consistently.

NOSE

Red Bull has an S-duct, with the entry under the nose and the exit halfway up Daniel Ricciardo’s number ‘3’. This S-duct helps pull airflow across the Fia-defined neutral central-wing section, improving the mass airflow to the bargeboard area. It also reduces the lift created on the top of the chassis by the airflow accelerating over the upper surface.

Red Bull has also retained its ‘driver-cooling duct’ in the front of the nose. This helps with the stagnation point of the airflow on the leading edge of the nose – where the airflow ‘decides’ whether it is going to go over the top or underneath it.

FRONT WING

The front wing is the customary multi-element component, but with a more uniform slot-gap placement than we have seen on the other cars. By that I mean the chord lengths of each component from the leading edge to trailing edge are more parallel.

These slot gaps are all there to control the airflow separation and, more importantly, allow recovery from any separation problems. Greater control over this enables you to generate more-consistent aero loads from the front-wing assembly. Also, airflow separation creates turbulence behind the trailing edge of the front wing, which will have a detrimental effect further downstream.

BARGEBOARDS

Behind the front wheels, the RB14 becomes a bit more distinctive. The initial bargeboard package is a large vertical three-element component with a horizontal outer vane holding them all together. The car also has a curved lower-foot area, helping to prepare the airflow better for the underfloor. All of these elements pull more mass airflow through from under the front of the chassis, helping the performance of the front wing and the underfloor’s leading edge.

The outer bargeboard area is a vertical four-element component mounted as wide as possible on the outer corner of the sidepods. This area is all about managing the turbulent airflow coming off the trailing edge of the front tyre, and trying to keep it away from the leading edge of the sidepod and underfloor.

SIDEPODS

As opposed to last year’s Ferrari, which had a very high letterbox-style radiator inlet, Red Bull has gone for a narrower and taller inlet. The leading edge of the sidepod has the customary lower undercut, but it’s not as pronounced as the other cars we’ve seen and this undercut doesn’t continue through the sidepod.

Instead, Red Bull has gone for a very narrow overall sidepod section angled inwards from the floor to the top. This will entice the airflow coming over the top of the car to be pulled down into the Coke-bottle area inside the rear tyres.

There’s a horizontal wing section protruding from the leading edge of the sidepod and going out to the maximum width of the car, twisting downwards in profile with a small endplate on the upper surface. This is also helping the airflow to sweep down into the Coke-bottle area.

COKE BOTTLE

The Coke-bottle area and the rear body section are fairly conventional, with the radiator exits in a T-section at around top rear-wishbone height. Again, this not as exaggerated as we’ve seen on other cars.

Red Bull continues to run the car at an aggressive ride height angling up to the rear, which we call rake. This improves the performance of the front wing at low speeds when the rear is high and the front low, then it tapers off as the rear is drawn closer to the ground at higher speeds.

It also means that the rear diffuser doesn’t stall so early, again helping to move the centre of pressure rearwards as the car increases speed.