Red Bull RB9 Renault

[turbof1]

Worst launch ever.

They may be more interested / focused on engineering a championship caliber car than putting on a good dog and pony show.

Interesting livery though. I still think we won't be able to glean much of anything from these launches, and not until cars are in true season spec.

If you are doing a presentation of your car and invite journalists/tech experts, then there's not a single excuse to treaten your guests so badly as Red Bull did. Scarbs explicitly stated this was the worst launch he ever witnissed.

Either you do a show correctly, or you don't give one at all.

[King Six]

Even smaller side pods than the Sauber?!

I feel sorry for the engines.

Makes you wonder if the likes of Red Bull and Sauber can go this far with the current big hot 2006-spec V8's, how far they can go with the smaller, (far) more efficient, cooler, V6 turbos. I'm not expecting anything too radical for 2014, but I think once teams understand the V6's we might be seeing some seriously small sidepods and perhaps even smaller airboxes with them.

[Matt89]

I don't know if it's just a shadow, but there could be a sauber-style duct on the nose. (Zoom in the first photo)

[RicerDude]

I don't know if it's just a shadow, but there could be a sauber-style duct on the nose. (Zoom in the first photo)

That's what I was thinking because if you look at the front view the bulges on the edges of the tub start behind the step in the nose...

[Jersey Tom]

Either you do a show correctly, or you don't give one at all.

Personally I'd rather do none at all

[turbof1]

Either you do a show correctly, or you don't give one at all.

Personally I'd rather do none at all

Which would had been far better then offending a complete room.

[Shakeman]

Worst launch ever.

They may be more interested / focused on engineering a championship caliber car than putting on a good dog and pony show.

If that were the case then they would've launched from the Jerez pit lane. Journos are quite rightly miffed at a wasted Sunday. Getting their own pictures differentiates each publication when the story is the same for everyone. An EPK could've be received in an email. If RB down't want to play all then don't have a "launch" next year.

Anyway, comments on the car, RB's exhaust solution is the outlier in terms of the rest of the field. Given the limited operating range of the EBD effect I'm surprised they continued with this solution unless they were up against it in terms of 2013 car development. The Macca solution seems more in keeping with shedding of drag philosophy of DRS systems bolted onto the cars. This solution seems so unlike Newey given his treatment of the rear of the car in previous seasons.

But there's a long time until the start of the season so things might and probably will change considerably.

[KATO]

I find the front of the sidepods pretty similar to ferrari's...they are a bit less bulky low down but very steep as well

It's like the Sauber in the Sidepods department and this time we can say Sauber did it first firmly. It's funy how both went for small Sidepods I'm guessing they found certain advantages to the Sidepods being so small with the specific coanda systems each tired out and both can simply enlarge the Sidepods (covering) if they need to. and just keep the same packaging inside. Let's see how both cars eveolve as time goes by in the respect of the size of their Sidepods. this I will keep and eye on. Here you can say that great minds think alike since both went for the same system while all other teams actually have pretty big Sidepods INCLUDING Ferrari..

[KATO]

I don't know if it's just a shadow, but there could be a sauber-style duct on the nose. (Zoom in the first photo)

That's what I was thinking because if you look at the front view the bulges on the edges of the tub start behind the step in the nose...

I had not looked but it seems you too are correct another similarity between Sauber and RedBull.. Hinwill is doing something right his year..

[Blackout]

Indeed. it has a sauber slot behind the step
HR photo
http://f1.f-e-n.net/images/f1/2013/2013 ... 164_10.jpg

[henra]

I don't know if it's just a shadow, but there could be a sauber-style duct on the nose. (Zoom in the first photo)

I would say pretty sure: yes.
The top of the step is flat. The top of the monococque behind is recessed in the middle with bulged rims to the sides.
That is probably also the real reason for the still significantly steep step. Otherwise this would not make much sense. Forget about the weight. The difference to the McLaren style modesty panel will be negligeable.
The Sauber solution looks a bit better to me though preventing excessive spilling over the sides. Wonder if we'll see a Sauber style version soon.

[the EDGE]

has there always been that much floor space at the rear of the car, the side-pods seem to stop very early

[KATO]

Indeed. it has a sauber slot behind the step
HR photo
http://f1.f-e-n.net/images/f1/2013/2013 ... 164_10.jpg

Zoom into the Rear Wing and you'll find that it's almost like the Saubers but with out the bits that are I guess you can call a depression.. I feel that The RB9 is effectively the C-38 with a different Color to it.. =D>

[Mestrades]

Indeed. it has a sauber slot behind the step
HR photo
http://f1.f-e-n.net/images/f1/2013/2013 ... 164_10.jpg

What is the function of this hole?

I think that the exhausts are a bit further away of the suspension than in previous versions. Perhaps it's only an imagination...

[McMrocks]

They now having an inlet over the drivers head like many teams. I wonder why they need this because they don't have very tiny sidepods.

To the rest of the car:
The rear looks very slim and it is not surprisingly that they still use the ramp design. Front wing and rear wing are old, also not surprisingly. all in all an good evolution from the RB8 with no big surprises except the fact that they still use a stepped nose.
And they didn't go the way Ferrari does. Ferrari made the nose as high as possible but RB did bend the nose tipe downwards

@Mestrades

scarbs wrote this last year:
http://scarbsf1.com/blog1/2012/03/13/an ... auber-c31/