Red Bull RB14 Speculation Thread

[Webber2011]

no shark fin... that's for sure
I wonder how big is this for aero?

My very basic understanding of it is it makes the car more stable in yaw.
So I'd like to think we will see the cars sliding a little more when cornering next year, but I'm sure the teams will recover whatever losses they incur somehow.

The top Aero guys are too smart to let the ban effect them too much.

[roon]

It's not a magic bullet feature and anyway would require the rest of the car to be copied in order to perform the same.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it seems like too much is made of systemic integration on these cars. I recall when RB re-introduced rear pullrods in '09. Many said this was brilliant and should be copied, many said it wasn't a "magic bullet." All the cars had pullrods within a year or so after, while maintaining geometrically distinct bodywork.

[ringo]

The ferrari sidepods are a big deal.
We are forgetting how bad relative to mercedes ferrari chassis has been from 2014.
This feature put them on level with redbull chassis wise. That was never the case with any ferrari in almost ten years.
If a team wants to have a strong chassis they should definitely investigate the ferrari sidepods.

As said before, those pods are basically like having a rear wing in the middle of the car. Redbull has nothing to lose slapping them on their 2018 car. I said this about the mercedes wo7 strakes on the floor by the sidepods. People said last year they shouldnt be copied because it will affect this and that etc.. this year we had strakes all over the place.
By now we should accept that everything can be slapped on from car to car. That's just how aerodynamics work. You can refine and optimize later after you slap on a feature.

[PhillipM]

Those sidepods are really just everyones current concepts taken to the extreme anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them on more cars, they're really just an evolution of what they're already doing.

[dren]

The ferrari sidepods are a big deal.
We are forgetting how bad relative to mercedes ferrari chassis has been from 2014.
This feature put them on level with redbull chassis wise. That was never the case with any ferrari in almost ten years.
If a team wants to have a strong chassis they should definitely investigate the ferrari sidepods.

As said before, those pods are basically like having a rear wing in the middle of the car. Redbull has nothing to lose slapping them on their 2018 car.

How are they like having a wing in the middle of the car? All they did was move the cooling intake higher so it was less obstructive to the flow around and under the pods to the rear.

[carisi2k]

That bodywork at the front of the intake was also more draggy and hence why they struggled at monza and baku against the mercedes. It did help them in Melbourne, hungary, monaco and singapore.

[roon]

The ferrari sidepods are a big deal.
We are forgetting how bad relative to mercedes ferrari chassis has been from 2014.
This feature put them on level with redbull chassis wise. That was never the case with any ferrari in almost ten years.
If a team wants to have a strong chassis they should definitely investigate the ferrari sidepods.

As said before, those pods are basically like having a rear wing in the middle of the car. Redbull has nothing to lose slapping them on their 2018 car. I said this about the mercedes wo7 strakes on the floor by the sidepods. People said last year they shouldnt be copied because it will affect this and that etc.. this year we had strakes all over the place.
By now we should accept that everything can be slapped on from car to car. That's just how aerodynamics work. You can refine and optimize later after you slap on a feature.

In what sense do you think it is acting like a rear wing? As opposed to a front wing, or any other wing for that matter. Is this a comment on flow over the front corners of the floor? This flow structure has been around for many years in F1, as PhillipM just noted. The flick-ups on the outer edges of the floor and the ramps at the front provide the main airfoil shapes, as you know. So I don't totally disagree with you, the front floor corners act like wings.

[FPV GTHO]

That bodywork at the front of the intake was also more draggy and hence why they struggled at monza and baku against the mercedes. It did help them in Melbourne, hungary, monaco and singapore.

They could easily have struggled or succeeded on those tracks based on the shorter wheelbase relative to Mercedes.

[dren]

That bodywork at the front of the intake was also more draggy and hence why they struggled at monza and baku against the mercedes. It did help them in Melbourne, hungary, monaco and singapore.

They could easily have struggled or succeeded on those tracks based on the shorter wheelbase relative to Mercedes.

Mercedes ran their engines in higher power modes for Monza to show Mercedes dominance at Ferrari's home venue. Hamilton even made a snark comment about it on the podium.

[carisi2k]

Mercedes had new engines at monza and not high power modes. Not even the customer Mercedes powered cars had the capabilities that the factory mercs had that weekend.

[carisi2k]

My speculation about the RB14 is that it will be capable of using either the 2018 Renault or 2018 Honda engine. This is purely to cover there bases against an inept Renault. Renault's 2018 PU is still having issues with reliability on the dyno and so the question is will Renault have any engines for Red Bull to use in pre season testing. With access to the Honda engine since the September TR Honda announcement and the ongoing drama with Cyril and Renault it would be foolish to not have a backup plan for the RB14 to use a Tag Heuer branded Honda engine.

[bauc]

My speculation about the RB14 is that it will be capable of using either the 2018 Renault or 2018 Honda engine. This is purely to cover there bases against an inept Renault. Renault's 2018 PU is still having issues with reliability on the dyno and so the question is will Renault have any engines for Red Bull to use in pre season testing. With access to the Honda engine since the September TR Honda announcement and the ongoing drama with Cyril and Renault it would be foolish to not have a backup plan for the RB14 to use a Tag Heuer branded Honda engine.

Reno and Honda PU have huge differences in concept and design, I don't know how they can pull this off, and how they will justify the spending of resources to make one chassis fit two different PU's, different is size, colling requirements, gearbox everthing, they would have to make a B+ spec if that is even doable. Furthermore, are you saying Reno will not be ready to give RBR engines to use in pre-season testing?!?!?! Are you serious?

RBR RB14 is made for the Reno chassis, they have so much experience with it, I'm sure it again will be a class of chassis and they will challenge Mercedes and Ferrari for the 2018 title

[dren]

There is no way Red Bull will switch PUs at any point during the season next year. They should have a legitimate shot at the championship if the Renault PU improves. There's no reason to design a chassis to accept two different PUs easily; you'd be severely compromising your design overall.

[dren]

no shark fin... that's for sure
I wonder how big is this for aero?

My very basic understanding of it is it makes the car more stable in yaw.
So I'd like to think we will see the cars sliding a little more when cornering next year, but I'm sure the teams will recover whatever losses they incur somehow.

The top Aero guys are too smart to let the ban effect them too much.

It also helps to smooth out the turbulent flow caused by the air intake for the PU.

[carisi2k]

1. Why would the gearbox be different? Toro rosso are using the Red Bull Gearbox which apparently works nicely with the Honda engine.
2. The smaller Honda would fit just as easily into the rb14 as it has in the STR12 test rig. Some repackaging is necessary for sure but nothing significant if it is built into the rb14 chassis from the go.
3. Renault have constantly rebutted everything that red bull has done to try and help them. They are still having problems with the ers-k and don't seem to have an answer to this issue. How can RBT help Renault when they continue to refuse the help.
4. The Renault and RBR relationship is at an end, if the Honda is good and reliable come the first pre season test and the Renault is still a hand grenade do you really think Red Bull won't pull the trigger and tell Cyril to go and fly kites.

All of my theory comes from what I would do if I was in Horner's situation. If you see the same thing happening again with your incumbant supplier who you don't like anymore and who doesn't like you. Why continue dating them.