If Formula One’s new rules were designed to neutralize the advantage Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel have enjoyed over the past few years, early indications from testing last week show that the plan seems to be working perfectly.
The usually high-flying Red Bull Racing squad had its wings clipped in what can only be described as a disastrous four days after it barely got its car out of the garage in the year’s first test session Jerez, Spain.
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Vettel completed just 11 laps in the 2014 RB10 over the first two days of the test .
To put the troubles Red Bull had in last week’s Jerez test in perspective, Vettel logged 174 laps over the same period last year as his team ran through a comprehensive test program to get ready for the 2013 season.
Things didn’t improve after Vettel’s new teammate Daniel Ricciardo took over for the second half of the Jerez outing. Essentially, the car hardly left the garage, and when it did, the RB10 didn’t last long. The team fought chassis cooling and electronic issues, packing up early on the final day to limp home to its Milton Keynes headquarters.
In all, the new Red Bull car completed a total of 21 laps for 92 kilometres over four days. The team tried to put a positive spin on the experience, saying that its limited track time had shown that the problems it experienced should be solved by the second test, this time in Bahrain next week.
Ricciardo told reporters in Spain that Red Bull’s technical ace, Adrian Newey, had gone back to the drawing board after the test. The young Australian also mused about it being a long season, something that might indicate Red Bull does not expect to find success early in the 2014 campaign.
Red Bull wasn’t alone in its woes. The other Renault-powered squads also struggled in the opening test. The Red Bull junior squad Toro Rosso only put 54 laps in the books during the test, while the top runner for the French engine manufacturer was Caterham which managed 76. It was easily the worst of the three engine makers, as we will see below.
Even if the Red Bull does solve its problems by the next four-day session that begins February 19 in Bahrain, the team will still be behind, after essentially wasting the entire opening test session coping with mechanical issues.
Random Thoughts
The new regulations will have a drastic affect on lap times, with this year’s F1 cars markedly slower than their 2013 cousins. The fastest time of the Jerez test, set by rookie McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen on a new set of medium-compound Pirellis, was 1 minute 23.276 seconds – 5.397 seconds slower than the best effort by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa in the opening test of 2013.
It is also important to note that Massa, who now drives for Williams, clocked his effort of 1 minute 17.879 seconds last year during a test where Pirelli admitted the cold temperatures made it tough for the teams to get the tires working properly. So, fans shouldn’t be surprised to see the cars qualifying about five seconds slower on the streets of Melbourne when the season gets underway next month in Australia. By the end of the year, it’s likely that gap will shrink to about 3.5 seconds as the teams bring developments throughout the season to improve their cars.
By the Numbers
The word that defines the 2014 season may be reliability. Fans who missed the exploding “yellow teapots” in the late 1970s might come to understand how Formula One’s first turbocharged car, the Renault RS-01, got its nickname. When Renault introduced its 1.5-litre turbo in mid-1977, the engine quickly earned a reputation for detonating. Between 1977 and 1979, it finished only seven times in 28 starts. Fast forward three decades, and in the first test with the new 1.6-litre V-6 engines , the number of laps was 1,470, which works out to 6,509 kilometres driven, or about 42 per cent of the 3,531 laps (15,634 km) the teams racked up at the same track in the first test of 2013.
Technically Speaking
While Red Bull floundered, Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes pounded out the laps in Jerez, amassing reams of valuable data about their cars’ performance as the RB10 sat motionless. In addition, the first test also confirmed what many observers predicted when it came to powerplants: The Mercedes engine looks to be the one to beat.
Eight of the top-10 lap times in Jerez went to Mercedes-powered cars, with only the Ferrari duo of Kimi Räikkönen (fifth) and Fernando Alonso (seventh) preventing a clean sweep . In addition, four of the top-5 spots when it came to mileage also went to Mercedes-powered cars, pointing to good reliability out of the gate for those teams . The highest number of laps completed at this year’s Jerez test by any one driver was Nico Rosberg, who racked up 188 laps in his Mercedes. Mercedes also ranked No. 1 in team laps completed at 309.
In total, the Mercedes teams – Force India, McLaren, Mercedes, and Williams – ran 875 laps for a total of 3,874 kms. There was also good news for Ferrari which saw Alonso second in total laps by drivers, with 173, and the Scuderia second in team laps with 251 despite some technical issues. In total, Ferrari and its two engine customers Marussia and Sauber logged the second highest mileage total at 444 laps and 1,966 kms. The three Renault supplied teams completed a disappointing total of 151 laps, amounting to just 668 kms.
The Last Word
Journalists covering F1 aren’t supposed to root for a particular team or driver. But it’s probably safe to say that many were secretly smiling when Felipe Massa put the Williams at the top of the time sheets on the final test day in Jerez. The once-illustrious team finished ninth overall in 2013, scoring a dismal five points in 19 races. It only finished ahead of perennial backmarkers Marussia and Caterham, both of which scored no points.
An independent operation that found huge success, the team is arguably the second most successful team in F1 history, with only Ferrari winning more constructors’ titles. Founder Frank Williams remains at the helm of the squad he started in 1977, which scored nine constructors’ titles, seven driver’s championships, 103 wins, and 108 poles in the two decades following its debut. Unfortunately, since Canadian Jacques Villeneuve took the driver’s crown and led the team to its last constructors’ championship in 1997, the outfit has fallen on hard times. It has only 11 wins and 19 poles in the 17 seasons since Villeneuve’s title and lately has been forced to look for pay drivers to help it make ends meet.
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