Some technical notes on the new Red Bull Renault F1 car

Red Bull has had a troubled start to its testing campaign with the RB11, not able to show its potential, but internally the team seem to feel that initial signs are positive from the car, which is more or less what they expected it to be.

The car did 734km, nothing like the mileage that its leading rivals have covered; it even did less than Lotus (842km) which missed the start of the test, due to two major technical issues on the power unit and the incident with the front wing damage for Daniil Kvyat on Monday.

It was running an interim engine specification; "our power unit will also be very different in a month" said Renault Sport's Cyril Abiteboul. It which covered more than 2,400km in the Red Bull and Toro Rosso cars this week. It features a a heavily modified internal combustion engine, turbocharger and battery.

The bottom line is that Renault didn't invest enough, early enough, in this hybrid F1 technology in comparison with Mercedes and it's still playing catch up.

The definitive 2015 power unit is believed to be slated for the start of the European season in Spain. So they will be giving something away in the early flyaway races, but we'd expect them to close up as the season goes on.

So there will be much scrutiny of the car when it runs in Barcelona next week and the week after. We'd expect to see performance parts coming to the car, especially for that final test in particular.

Remember Red Bull struggled badly for mileage last season with the new Renault engine and then finished the first Grand Prix in second place, before being disqualified for fuel flow irregularities. So lack of running isn't necessarily a show stopper for them.

But the car has a number of interesting features, as spotted by JA on F1 technical adviser Dominic Harlow, former chief operations engineer at Force India and Williams.

Dominic writes: RB11 uses a minimal short nose but with the front wing pillars turned outboard to create some turning effect and perhaps offer some structural benefits to the front wing with its multiple outboard elements that extend from the neutral section.

Nose cameras are conservative and feature only a small inboard fillet at the mounting. Red Bull used a more radical solution in 2014, which they had to abandon so it’s certainly possible there are developments to come, which they won’t show during early testing.

The car features blown front axles (Air channelled via the brake ducts exiting through the centre of the wheel nuts) and the correspondingly large brake duct inlet scoops. The front track rod has also been raised to be a part of the top wishbone aero cascade.

Once again the Red Bull exploits a dramatic level of rake (front of car runs lower than the rear) requiring a different ride height operating regime from the majority of cars. How this sits with the requirement to minimise drag and time spent on the straight more than ever before will be a compromise the team has to find at faster circuits. (Note: Red Bull struggled last year by having to run less downforce in qualifying and races to compensate for the power deficiencies which meant that the aerodynamics were not optimised)

At the rear there is a large and higher central wing above the Rear Impact Structure and a small single pillar support that might also be connected to the DRS actuator all aimed at maximising rear downforce for minimum drag.

Red Bull's new technical chief, Rob Marshall (below right) was there to oversee the running, as was Adrian Newey, the former technical boss who now has a more roving role, but who remains involved in the F1 project.

When Newey left Williams they struggled to replace him, likewise McLaren had a few tough years after he left. Red Bull is not making that mistake; it has kept him in the family, even if he is not involved day to day any more.

Whether Marshall and his colleagues, who have worked alongside Newey these past years, can now step up and match his dizzying standards, time will tell.