2019 Aston Martin Red Bull Racing - Honda F1 Team

[GPR-A]

Mclaren's problem with the Honda and Renault in regards to tight packaging in 2017/18 was due also to other elements like the shortest wheelbase, smallest engine airbox and small radiators. As shown in the Toro rosso last year with the larger airbox the honda had some capability and the red bull will not make the same mistake as their car is nowhere near as undersized as the mclaren was in 2017/18.

If the 2018 red bull rb14 can fit a Renault engine then it shouldn't be a problem to fit a Honda in a similarly packaged rb15. The Honda will fit better in to the rb15 package then the Renault ever could.

May be if RB10 to RB14 would have been more liberal in packaging, probably the Renault PU would have performed better? Just like if McLaren would have allowed then Honda would have. No?

Only those who don't understand Newey's obsession with tight packaging can believe that Honda would get that freedom. He didn't allow that freedom to Mercedes in McLaren days and he didn't allowed that to Renault in all these past years.

In 2014 and 2015, the Red Bull garage was always busy cutting the carbon fibre in winter testing to remove the heat. After all, Peter Prodromou came from Red Bull and he continued doing the same in McLaren. So it's the Red Bull DNA that is embedded in that philosophy. Newey is not going to compromise his aero philosophy and would continue to be as demanding as he has been with all those PU manufacturers.

Besides, every year manufacturers learn and optimize the cooling solutions with newer iteration of the PU and if Honda would have done the same for this year, the credit goes to them and not because Red Bull would have allowed that freedom to Honda.

Regarding the wheel base thing, here are the numbers. 2015 debut with Honda for McLaren was a nightmare and here is a comparison of the wheel base. McLaren MP4-30 had a bigger wheel base for a smaller PU, than RB14 for a bigger PU!
https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/709067570465394689



And here is the 2017 wheel base comparison !!! Again, McLaren has longer wheelbase than RB!



Look at the side pod openings of both cars in 2018. See how non-intrusive the airflow is to the side pods of McLaren, where they can afford to have a smaller airbox opening on the top.

An advice. Please don't make highly confident, factually incorrect statements.

[FPV GTHO]

We pretty much know McLaren dictated to Honda how much space the engine could take up, but I don't think it was anywhere near as bad for Renault with Red Bull. Renault had 3 customers at the time, and we're fairly open in saying they weren't simply going to tailor the engine to suit Red Bull. So I think if Renault felt a bigger PU would perform better, they had the opportunity to do so.

[GPR-A]

We pretty much know McLaren dictated to Honda how much space the engine could take up, but I don't think it was anywhere near as bad for Renault with Red Bull. Renault had 3 customers at the time, and we're fairly open in saying they weren't simply going to tailor the engine to suit Red Bull. So I think if Renault felt a bigger PU would perform better, they had the opportunity to do so.

In 2014, when the new power units came out, Renault had 4 customers. RB, TR, Caterham and Lotus. We know what Caterham and Lotus were capable of, where they struggled to even pay the bills to survive and they were buying Renault, because the Renault PU was cheaper of the available manufacturers. With RB, Renault had won 4 back to back championships. In 2012/13, for the sake of blowing the exhaust, Renault had done some intricate engine work on the demands of RB to help get the best use of coanda effect. In such a partnership. Renault had promptly followed the guidance of RB and built a PU that fits the aero philosophy of RB (Newey).

Renault Racing came back as a full works team, only in 2016 and in even in that year, Renault did everything that RB wanted. The relationship started going sour when Renault started prioritizing their own Works team for 2017 and started eliminating the RB from decision making process.

[Wouter]

Renault had promptly followed the guidance of RB and built a PU that fits the aero philosophy of RB (Newey).

Renault Racing came back as a full works team, only in 2016 and in even in that year, Renault did everything that RB wanted.

Do you have a source of that or are that your own assumptions?
Then RBR would have done the same as McLaren / Honda:
" This is our car, make sure the engine fits into it. "

What I do know is that in consultation with Renault a few small things were adjusted, but not that the whole engine had to be adapted to the car.

[ME4ME]

Renault Racing came back as a full works team, only in 2016 and in even in that year, Renault did everything that RB wanted. The relationship started going sour when Renault started prioritizing their own Works team for 2017 and started eliminating the RB from decision making process.

For being Mr. factually correct you are wide off the mark.

Already in 2013 Red Bull were saying Renault wasn't investing enough. In 2014 they were unhappy but were toughing things out and hoping for a big improvement. Instead it was the Ferrari engine wich improved the following year.
Red Bull were seriously considering leaving Formula 1 at the end of 2015.
There was the "agreed" Mercedes engine supply deal saga etc.

Renault getting their own team, focusing on their own, making their own decisions.. that wasn't the initiater of the break down of relations.

[Manoah2u]

The only initiator of the breakdown between RB and Renault was Cyril Abiteboul.

[Mansell89]

Red Bull are certainly not giving Honda a huge amount of wriggle room withen their remarks are they? To hear Verstappen talk you’d think they’ve binned a dud engine and taken on a beast. That remains to be seen.

When you consider some of the criticism they have given Renault, if ever Renault have made the leap forward that they claim (this time), Honda might be some way behind in the opening races. How will Red Bulls patience be if that was a scenario that played out?

Verstappen has actually been quite “low” in his expecation, certainly for the beginning of 2019 season, he has said on several occasion he still expected to be down in power, and he has been more restrained then certainly Marko or even Horner. I am curious about just what gave you this impression?

I agree he has toned it down as we get closer to Testing, but here are a couple of examples:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.gpfa ... %3fid=3426

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.news ... e32878c8c9

[GPR-A]

Renault Racing came back as a full works team, only in 2016 and in even in that year, Renault did everything that RB wanted. The relationship started going sour when Renault started prioritizing their own Works team for 2017 and started eliminating the RB from decision making process.

For being Mr. factually correct you are wide off the mark.

Already in 2013 Red Bull were saying Renault wasn't investing enough. In 2014 they were unhappy but were toughing things out and hoping for a big improvement. Instead it was the Ferrari engine wich improved the following year.
Red Bull were seriously considering leaving Formula 1 at the end of 2015.
There was the "agreed" Mercedes engine supply deal saga etc.

Renault getting their own team, focusing on their own, making their own decisions.. that wasn't the initiater of the break down of relations.

Factually incorrect again. RB's threat to quit F1, was just hot gas. as they were contractually obligated to serve F1 until 2020. Never a chance of them leaving. They were trying to do a hard bargain with Bernie to get a PU from either Mercedes or Ferrari, which neither constructor was willing (except that Ferrari offered one year older engines). Nothing changed due to their threatening, but they still continued in F1!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motor ... ilure.html

This is not the first time threats have come from Marko with little consequence. It is also worth noting that Red Bull have a contract to remain part of the world championship until 2020. Their guarantee to Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s supremo, is precisely the reason why they have been granted so much influence and sit on the sport’s all-powerful Strategy Group.

Link -> Why Red Bull Can't Quit Formula One Before 2020 - Forbes.com

However, Red Bull Racing’s financial statements reveal that its parent company is directly named on the bilateral agreements meaning that if it were to pull out of the series, the F1 Group could take action against it.

It isn’t clear what the penalty for breaking the bilateral contracts would be but, as with any agreement, the criteria cannot be breached otherwise there will be consequences.

The agreed Mercedes engine supply, was a one sided expectation from RB, as Lauda had clearly mentioned that, there was no official approach from RB to Mercedes.
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/223597/1/ ... e-mercedes

Niki Lauda says Dietrich Mateschitz never seriously approached Mercedes about a Red Bull engine deal because he 'doesn't like' the manufacturer.

"It was very clear that Mateschitz never really approached us for the reasons he never really liked Mercedes from the past," he said. "Then Ferrari came and offered an engine which now has negotiations going on over what engines they get

"It is a funny situation. Maybe he is not as interested as he was in the past. There was a long discussion internally, [but] we never got the approach. We don't have to go around and beg people to use the engines. We were never approached, so we never thought about it."

[ME4ME]

Of course Red Bull could have left. Whether the consequences would be acceptable is another question. Going by what happened: Probably not. Red Bull are still here.

Regardless, you handily swirl around the point I was making that Red Bull-Renaults issues started well in advance of Renault getting their own team. Can you admit and agree to that?

[Sieper]

Red Bull are certainly not giving Honda a huge amount of wriggle room withen their remarks are they? To hear Verstappen talk you’d think they’ve binned a dud engine and taken on a beast. That remains to be seen.

When you consider some of the criticism they have given Renault, if ever Renault have made the leap forward that they claim (this time), Honda might be some way behind in the opening races. How will Red Bulls patience be if that was a scenario that played out?

Verstappen has actually been quite “low” in his expecation, certainly for the beginning of 2019 season, he has said on several occasion he still expected to be down in power, and he has been more restrained then certainly Marko or even Horner. I am curious about just what gave you this impression?

I agree he has toned it down as we get closer to Testing, but here are a couple of examples:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.gpfa ... %3fid=3426

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.news ... e32878c8c9

So from the first link it indeed shows that Max is actually more restrained then Marko. Copied literrally from that article, and in my eyes those kind of texts are really not boasting at all.

“On Marko's comments, Verstappen told Ziggo Sport: "We hope so, of course, but we have to wait and see what the start of the season will look like. I believe we will make another step forward, just with the engine alone."”

And that second link is that what it says in the australian press more often? No wonder there is so much hate speak flooding Some forums. That is not a good way to do business.

[godlameroso]

By the second week of testing we'll know if whether Red Bull has a fighting chance in hell or not. If they're within .3 or even .5 on the long runs, they'll be in reasonable shape to catch up. If it's more than that, they'll have their work cut out for them.

Last year they were within .5 on the long runs and won races, I expect similar performance with a similar gap.

[Just_a_fan]

I can see teams being cagey in testing. Simulators let them know their performance so they don't need to be entirely representative at the test days. Australia will let us know...

[godlameroso]

There's no point in holding back any more. The last 4 years of testing have painted a clear picture of the pecking order, it showed when Ferrari got closer, it showed that Red Bull was close but not quite there in qualifying and race pace. I don't expect anything different this year, last year even showed that Haas had some pace which materialized several times in the year. Granted you will never know exactly the gaps, but you can get a good picture within a few tenths, so you will know if someone cocked it up, or has something going on.

[nevill3]

The current limited testing the teams have available to them ensures that there is very little time for sandbagging and subterfuge, especially if a problem occurs early on and a team is on the back foot and trying desperately to run all their planned tests successfully.

Recent years have proved to be a more reliable barometer for the forthcoming season and despite headline grabbing glory runs the solid race simulations can be dissected at leisure to garner a relatively accurate guesstimate of the initial pecking order.

[FPV GTHO]

By the second week of testing we'll know if whether Red Bull has a fighting chance in hell or not. If they're within .3 or even .5 on the long runs, they'll be in reasonable shape to catch up. If it's more than that, they'll have their work cut out for them.

Last year they were within .5 on the long runs and won races, I expect similar performance with a similar gap.

I don't think it's long run pace holding them back. They need qualifying pace with the higher powered engine modes.