Red Bull problems are “nothing major” – Horner

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Christian Horner plays down the seriousness of Red Bull’s problems with their new RB10 after an unsuccessful first test in Jerez.

Links

Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.

Horner: ‘Nothing major wrong’ (Sky)

“There’s a few things that we need to tighten up on our side, but nothing major, and obviously Renault have got some issues that they’re tidying up as well but these cars are so complicated little problems can cause big failures.”

Lotus complete first test in new car (BBC)

“Lotus ran their new E22 car ‘without any major problems’ for the maximum 100km (62 miles) at Jerez on Saturday.”

Renault validates updates with Lotus at Jerez (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)

“The latest [power unit] configuration was deployed without any reliability problems, allowing Lotus to complete the maximum amount of km permitted on a filming day.”

Olivier Quesnel interesse par Lotus (BFMTV, French)

Former Citroen and Peugeot racing boss Olivier Quesnel is tipped to succeed Eric Boullier as team principal at Lotus.

Hamilton has regrets over Di Resta dispute (The Telegraph)

“Anthony Hamilton has expressed his regret at how severely his relationship with Paul di Resta broke down, after the Scottish former Formula One driver and his old manager agreed an out-of-court settlement following a bitter damages lawsuit in which their dispute was publicly examined.”

Mercedes: McLaren relations to change (Autosport)

Toto Wolff: “There is still a fair amount of knowledge that you can share on developing the power unit, but then there is a fair amount of knowledge that you wouldn’t want to exchange anyway because they are switching to Honda.”

Haug tips Mercedes for 2014 F1 title (Crash)

“It would not surprise me if the title goes to Stuttgart this year. This was the plan from the outset.”

Nico Rosberg aims to follow in father’s F1 tracks (The Globe And Mail)

“In a way racing is probably similar in all sports – you always need support. But racing is one of the toughest of all because of the budgets you need to have to make it through the ranks is just incredible.”

Tweets

Comment of the day

More thoughts on driver-team reunions:

Not a strictly F1 reunion but Jean Alesi re-uniting in mid-2001 with the Jordan team with whom he won the 1989 F3000 championship and who were inspired by Alesi’s success to move up to F1 in 1991.

He arrived for the last five races of the season and was more on thw pace of team-mate Jarno Trulli than Heinz-Harald Frentzen who had been in the car all season (and two previous seasons). This coming from a completely different car that didn’t even have power steering, and only crude traction control.
@Montreal95

Site updates

The forum is still unavailable as work is ongoing.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Willis, Tom.Y and David Benford!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

A very happy birthday to John Surtees who is 80 today in the year which is the 50th anniversary of his world championship triumph.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

72 comments on “Red Bull problems are “nothing major” – Horner”

  1. Lotus’ test provided fairly encouraging signs that some of the teething problems with the Renault engine are at least partially resolved, so I think Horner may well be correct and the scaremongering unjust.

    After all, it was only one test!

    1. And I love it.

      I don’t want Seb to win the title in 2014 but I him to have a go, not like Lewis who found himself in a poor car in 2009.

    2. I still think that while there might not be a major problem with the design of the Red Bull, its a whole lot of smaller things they HAVE to change to make it run reliable, after all, the Caterham did do as much running as their Renault would allow during the friday in Jerez @vettel1.

      Not that I doubt Newey will solve it, he always goes more extreme and loosens up (before getting back there over time) when its too much for the mechanical parts underneath. But saying there is nothing much wrong with the car and the issue is mainly with Renault is poor window dressing and shifting attention to someone else.

      1. “But saying there is nothing much wrong with the car and the issue is mainly with Renault is poor window dressing and shifting attention to someone else.”

        He’s not doing that. He’s saying RBR have to tidy some things up and uses the exact same wording for Renault – that they have some things to tidy up as well. He’s placing both on equal foot here. Which seems fair.

        1. He does not use the exact same working for the Renault stuff though Matt, and in his earlier statement before being asked explicitly about packaging of their car, he starts off with saying Renault have issues, before saying the team have some things but nothing major to do too.
          It clearly is meant to point attention away from those packaging issues, and towards Renault as the main culprit, without directly saying so (they do not want to upset Goshn too much this time, Renault already stated that communication from Red Bull was not fair in Jerez).

          But in the end both have a job to do, as the Renault certainly does not seem to be running smoothly quite yet and the Red Bull did the worst job of all Renault powered teams in their first days of (trying to) on track running, with the second worst Renault team being their sister team STR.

          1. I’m not judging on earlier statements – this article here seems entirely fair. He does use the same wording – Renault have to “tidy up some things as well”.

            The only thing extra is he qualifies their own problems as “nothing major”, but indicating Renault only have to “tidy up some things” shows pretty much the same attitude.
            On top of that he is best placed to talk about their own problems as “nothing major” but he doesn’t know Renaults problems as well as Renault do themselves, so he is not ideally placed to give an accurate estimation of their problems.

            Still, I think it’s very fair and he puts the problems on both sides at the same level.

          2. See? I told everyone. The 1st test was just a glitch and Red Bull will dominate once again :-)

  2. Looks like one of the two nose prongs on the Lotus is also higher?
    Or is that just perspective?

    1. It certainly looks like, but I dont know if this is the original design or Pastor made some modifications.

    2. I think they point downwards at the same angle (exactly parallel). Since one of them is shorter, the tip will also be a bit higher.

  3. Interesting to hear that little bit of radio from Brazil 2012. A lot of criticism was dished out at Mark when the Multi 21 incident happened that he hadn’t helped his teammate back in Brazil. It’s clear to see that he had no idea what was meant by this coded message of Multi 12, even asking “which switch is that?”

    I for one can not understand why a coded message was needed at all. Team orders were by this stage legal, and using a coded message added unneccessary confusion to an already stressful situation.

    1. Quite often coded messages can be easier to understand – “Sebastian needs to pass you Mark” is much more information to interpret through a radio than “multi 12”.

      1. Agreed, but only if the code is known by all, which it is clear it wasn’t.

        1. Again, agreed @crackers. I’m sure he is familiar with the coding by now though!

    2. @crackers I sense from that radio call he was a proper hypocrite as his engineer had to tell him “let Sebastian go please” I mean his team mate was in a title fight he had nothing to gain a proper straight bloke like he calls himself should have simple moved out of the way!
      Also the same code was used in 2011 at spa so feigning ignorance was just wrong.

      1. He was being cute! No sense of humour here…

        Really gonna miss the big guy.

    3. It is clear that Mark was faking it. He knew very well what Multi12 meant. But he probably wanted his engineer to say it out loud so that it gets picked up and broadcasted on world feed.

    4. I rather think it explains why the general public didn’t have a clue what the team was going on about when they pointed at Brazil 2012 @crackers.
      I would be seriously amazed if Webber did not have a clue what was going on there with the multi 12 message there, he is no little kid. IMO he chose to ignore that because he did not want to heed the instruction, just as he had ignored it before.
      Big shame we get this only now, because it adds depth to all that was said by both Webber (using much the same tone of voice of Horner telling him about multi 21 in Malaysia), to Vettel ignoring it just as Webber had done, playing that he didn’t understand, etc.

      1. @bascb Yes it’s all the same really. Apart from MW letting SV past 5 seconds after this radio message. But apart from that exactly the same

        Riiiight

        1. Yes, it is the same in that both drivers are reluctant to heed the instruction, hinting that they do not understand what is being said @montreal95.

          Off course Vettel had far less to lose (how would they want to punish him for it?) by overtaking Webber and knew there was less at stake for them than for Webber letting Vettel by in Brazil because the title was at play there. That led to very clearly different outcomes.

          1. @bascb Well yeah it’s the second race of the season. There should be no team orders whatsoever, it’s RBR’s fault first and foremost. but that’s not an excuse for Seb

          2. @montreal95, I am lost a bit what you are going at. First of all, I am not a big fan of Vettel, I rather like Webber more. And more importantly, I think there is NEVER a good time for TO, and applaud drivers resisting, or even better, ignoring such orders.

            The way Vettel went about it in Malaysia certainly was not great and the team once again showed that it is not in control of what happens at all. But lets not kid ourself, both Vettel in Malaysia and Webber in earlier instances were perfectly aware that they were going against what the team told them to do.

            And I think its a shame we got this bit of information (which at least explains to us what the team and Vettel were harking about when they mentioned Webber ignoring orders in Brazil as a reason for Vettel to ignore them in Malaysia) only now, because it would have given more information to understand the team at the time if we had known this.

          3. @bascb But if they were talking about Webber ignoring team orders in Brazil, they were lying. plain and simple. Webber didn’t ignore any team orders here he let SV past immediately after the joke and his team’s explicit order. So, the team should’ve given an explicit order to Seb to maintain his second position in Sepang, is that what you say?

            Team orders are ok when one driver is out of contention for WDC while the other isn’t, but not in any other case. What Seb did in Malaysia was a betrayal to what he agreed before the race. If he was so righteous, then he should’ve said he would not heed such an order before the race. But he only reneged on this when the order came to be mullti 21 and not multi 12. That’s for me the worst type of break of trust there is. I said it many times and will repeat again-it was Pironi-like

          4. I wouldn’t call it lying there @montreal95, in so far seeing that the same kind of instruction was given to Webber makes me understand more of their reasoning behind saying so in Malaysia.
            Do we know for certain, that Webber moved aside immediately after being told to do so the first time (as often FOM only pick up on the second time and messages are played later than when they were given, I wouldn’t be too sure of that), by the way?
            And for what its worth, by all accounts I would uphold that the deam did give Vettel a clear instruction, as clear as they had given Webber earlier.

            I don’t think Vettel was righteous at all. At first he even denied having understood and only later changed his collection of facts towards saying he did not think Webber deserved it after things like Brazil. That was a complete mess, and while an interesting view of his thinking, it certainly did not make him any hero.

            A big difference to Pironi-Villeneuve is that those guys did trust eachother and considered themselves to be friends. Neither was the case for the RBR teammates.

            But really, lets bury this discussion, because I do not really understand what your problem is with my comment above, and you do not seem to be able to explain it to me.

          5. @bascb Yeah, let’s bury this discussion but for another reason. Your post is all to the tune of “shame we didn’t get to see this earlier, then people might have seen Sepang 2013 in a different light”. At least that’s how I understood it. And if that’s the message then it’s wrong. I don’t see how this can change the aforementioned perception of Sepang in any way neither positive or negative for SV and/or MW. The only thing that connects those 2 incidents is that an order was being given. Nothing else. That is where we disagree, it seems to me, and that’s why we should indeed bury this discussion as I don’t think we can come to a conclusion here

            And just for the record, we do know that Webber let SV past immediately because SV arrived on MW’s tail after a pitstop and was past him within a lap after that

          6. Excuse me @montreal95, but you argue for the wrong reasons here. Yes, the point of my post is how it adds to how we (or I at least) see that incident. But it doesn’t change anything for the DRIVERS but for understanding why the team (and later Vettel) even mentioned Brazil. Up to now, when we didn’t know they gave that same order, and it was not clear how Webber had even tried to hold up Vettel, to me they were talking complete nonsense. Now at least I understand what they mean, even if I still think (and agree with you) that those were 2 situations that were only remotely the same (an order had to be given and probably repeated).

            Indeed, Webber did not hold up Vettel for long, although now it seems that even the little loss in time he might have had because Webber did not jump out of the way the moment he saw him in his mirrors was too much for his, and the teams liking. That is why it didn’t even occur to me earlier to give ANY credit to their view that Webber was uncooperative.

          7. @bascb Ok, I get it now. Sorry for wasting your time with this discussion then :)

    5. Mark let Sebastian by once in the race (which is probably the situation of the Multi 12 snippet), and he made it uncomfortable for him twice (start and re-start).

      1. @mike-dee I see SV fans continue with re-writing of history. There was nothing wrong with what MW did in Brazil 2012. Not at the start when everyone is for himself as was said by numerous experts throughout the 20 years I watch F1, you just cannot watch for anyone at the start but yourself with 20 cars around you. And not at the re-start when SV was so slow that Kobayashi got a run on him and what was Webber supposed to do? He took to the outside and ran wide out of the track and compromised his own race to avoid endangering SV and yet his fans are ungrateful. and when he was asked to move over MW might have made a joke, but he moved nonetheless within few seconds of being asked to do so. But yeah it’s perfectly fine in some’s minds to compare it to Malaysia, sure

        This discussion has been the same for a year already. It’s clear that nobody is going to change their minds. Not those who condemn Webber for Brazil. Not those who have lost a lot of respect for Seb after Malaysia. But if those who criticize MW won’t move over, then I won’t too since a re-writing of history(which IMO it’s what it is) should never stay without reply

        1. @montreal95 I am no fan of any particular driver (except Jerôme D’Ambrosio as he is a local), even though I might sometimes sound like a SV fan to some of those that don’t like him; I merely respect him as a very talented driver.

          Virtually every driver other than Webber would have done their utmost to help their team mate win the WDC in the last race (see Massa). At the start, everyone is for himself, but why squeeze your team mate? At the restart, just back off if you need to to avoid causing additional trouble to your team mate.

          And I agree with you that MW moved over quickly enough in the situation depicted in the video.

          1. I think the reference to Massa there is not the most fitting one. It would be better to point to how Kimi did let Massa by when the championship was at stake in 2008. But Massa all brings us back towards things like Hockenheim 2010 which is quite the opposite extreme (letting your teammate past in the early/mid season) to Mark Webber being reluctant to make it easy on Vettel in the season final.

          2. @mike-dee I had huge respect for Seb. Actually he was my 3rd favorite driver at the start of 2013 behind Webber and Kimi. As they said about Senna once, he will be ranked among the all time greats. But this Sepang incident was really unnecessary and I cannot respect him the same way I did before.

            Why squeeze your team-mate? You imply he did it intentionally to impede Seb and not as a part of the start dynamic? In that case I disagree.

            and watch that restart again. How can he back off, he’s behind KK not Seb. He has a run on KK with the intention of overtaking him on the outside, then he sees SV there and runs wide and compromises his race losing many positions not to get SV in any trouble. Really I can’t see what more he could’ve done there.

        2. @montreal95 same way MW fans forget Silverstone 11.
          imo, a lot more happened in the background than what we can see/hear in the official broadcasts and interviews. And the relationship was probably mutually toxic, so it’s like Senna vs. Prost – not as black and white as people wanna see it but just shades of grey on both sides.

          1. @tmf42 I for one don’t forget about Silverstone 2011. But I also don’t forget that circumstances were different.

            To me Silverstone 2011 stinks of Austria 2002. Seb had twice as many points as anyone else in the championship. Finishing 2 or 3rd would make a 3-points difference for him which was really nothing. Why that order? Rubbish from RBR and different to Sepang 2013 because at Sepang 2013 they wanted to avoid the Istanbul 2010 situation. Still not an excuse for RBR as there should be no team orders at that stage of the season. But once it was decided that there are. Both drivers agreed prior to race to it, thereafter SV behavior is inexcusable

          2. @montreal95 you mention how certain aspects are spun to fit a narrative and to defend your argument you do the same.

          3. @tmf42 Not at all. There’s a huge difference between talking about circumstances surrounding Silverstone 2011, and disputing the very claim of the anti-Webber gang that Webber somehow tried to jeopardize Vettel’s title fight in Brazil 2012, as a re-writing of history. Webber hadn’t done any such thing. When he was asked to move out of the way he did so immediately despite the joke, and the other 2 episodes(start and re-start) are pure coincidences the way they happened

    6. ”which switch is that”….are you sure, that was because he dint know what Multi 12 meant…we kinda know Mark and we know how ”funny” he can be ;) could it be a joke in defiance?

    7. massa let alonso trough 3 at least times during that race. No big deal here.

    8. Webber was just acting like butter wouldn’t melt. As stated already, he knew what “Multi 12” meant. Webber was a real hindrance for Vettel in that title-deciding race, the polar opposite to the way Massa acted, helping his team-mate.

      Add that to the way Webber ignored team orders at Silverstone 2011, then I don’t see how anyone can have a problem with Vettel ignoring them at Sepang 2013.

  4. What a great reply from Mark when he hears the Multi 12 instruction!

    Even funnier that it’s funny when Mark does it and a terrible crime if Seb does.

    1. Sebastian knows all the codes, he just decides to ignore them – a bit like how he always ignores Rocky ;)

      1. Lets not kid ourselves here @vettel1, Webber knew what he was being told as much as Vettel had no trouble understanding multi 21 later. But both decided that they did not want to gift their teammates the spot, and rightly so.

        1. I’m wondering whether the misunderstanding multi-12/21 codes could be genuine in the heat of the moment. When a driver is in a race and concentrating on racing and operating the car, I would think it could be conceivable that he might lose situational awareness at that moment and think “which switch do I need to adjust?” in line with operating the car rather than thinking “that’s a code to let my teammate pass”. It’s all very well us viewers analysing and criticising from the comfort of our armchairs, but this sort of thing has caused plane crashes in the past.

    2. Well, it’s funny that MW said ‘which switch is that’, not so funny for MW that SV last year probably said ‘let me switch that…to me being in front,’ and in true World Champion fashion requiring bravery and skill, daringly passed his sitting duck teammate who had been instructed to crank the car down. Legendary stuff.

      1. I don’t take sides on the issue, I just find the mud-slinging from both sides funny!

        1. Sounds like you have taken a side implying that the result is Seb committed a crime, like that is a majority view, yet I don’t think it is. I think many revere him for ignoring the order because that is what a WDC is supposed to do.

          I generally get that, but would prefer my ‘hero’ to not have done it like taking candy from a baby, nor looked so sheepish and apologetic for it in the heat of the moment once out of the car. Rather than owning it, until later of course, he let MW be the moral victor and perhaps set himself up for the booing later in the season once it became obvious, perhaps particularly to MW fans, that he didn’t need the points he stole from him in Malaysia.

          1. I would have had much more respect if instead of overtaking mark in Malaysia as he did effectively “taking candy from a baby” he’d got on the radio and said “I’m not going to hold position tell mark I’m coming” then shouted FULL POWER!

            He would’ve been able to justify it (by mark not abiding by team orders earlier) and he’ve shown the courage of a truer champion

    3. @mouse_nightshirt But you do take sides, simply by comparing these. MW let SV past immediately after this instruction even if he made a joke of it. How is that comparable to Malaysia? Was it also a joke in that fine German humor tradition?

  5. So technically, Lotus got a lot more “useful running” than most of the Renault teams who turned up for the test…….how ironic and funny….

    1. Yes, pure poetry :)

      Now I’m looking forward for test#2. I want to see the Bulls running for real.

  6. So they are called “filming days” now. :)
    I thought it’s for filming, not for validating technical gremlins. :)

    1. Yes and they’ve been around for many years now, in case you’ve been living under a rock. And since they were validating the things tested at the factory, not changing anything, or bolting new parts and since they’d run only 100km and with demo tires it’s all perfectly within the rules, and exactly the same thing was done by every team doing those “filming days” for years. If you think that these filming days were actually used for filming by any team who’d done them(all of them did), then I have a clock to sell you

  7. Good to see that picture of the Italian’s Luge. Winter Olympics are very interesting to watch (anyone else totally fascinated by curling every 4 years?), I watched the men’s luge event yesterday and the germans totally won it, partly because (ESPN said this) BMW helped develop it in their wind tunnel.

    Basically, the Germans were 3 tenths of a second faster than the italians, who probably had to rent the Cologne wind tunnel again for this year :P.

  8. Based on Ferrari’s analysis, the luge appears quite uncomfortable.

  9. “Pastor is getting on well with the team”;
    “Hey Pastor, the boys are wondering if you are going to buy us lunch again today.”

    1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      11th February 2014, 7:02

      I wonder if he doesn’t, will they tamper with his car…

  10. “Nothing Major Wrong”, which is easy to say after a Renault car has completed a filming session without interruption. The one thing that intrigues me though, is the problem around the fuel mix vs turbo injection into the engine, did they get their calculations wrong and had to update the ECU accordingly after they had some attempts at testing last week?

    1. Let me point out that it did not go completely without trouble though @dragoll. In the end Lotus did not do 1 day day, but used up BOTH days of promotional track time they have in a season, not just 1 day.
      On Friday it was more or less wasted as the car managed a single lap, but on the Saturday they managed the maximum of laps, be it with low pace and intermittent running. That sounds not much different than the way Caterham managed their 30 or so laps on the last Friday of the Jerez test, so I doubt all things are solved.

      1. The FIA Sporting Regulations do not stipulate that a promotional event is restricted to one day. In fact, they stipulate that a team must inform the FIA of the “date(s)” of the promotional event well in advance.

        Given the “date(s)” (possibility for plural), I believe they still have one PE left. They did not surpass 100km so this would still comply with only one PE.

        1. But you cannot draw out the event over several days like that Matt. Lotus would have had to announce both days. One day they did about 3,5 km, the other day they did a 100 km. Neither day did they go over 100 km, but both days were used.

          1. Who says you can’t draw it out over multiple days? I’ve looked at the sporting regulations, they say nothing about the allowed duration of a PE (promotional event). What they do say is that the date or dateS of “any TCC or PE” must be indicated 72 hours in advance.

            Do you have any indication they did exactly 100km the second day? In my opinion they did an installation lap on Friday, then got ready for the remaining mileage on Saturday, then did that. I don’t think they surpassed 100km on both days combined, specifically because that would still leave them with one more PE to go.

            If you have a reason for thinking a PE must be restricted to one day only, I’d like to hear it… but the sporting regulations do not seem to demand it.

          2. @basCB, MattDS, I got the impression Lotus intentionally made sure to be done at a certain time (4pm) on Saturday which meant they completed all running within 24hours. Not having more details of when the did that 1 lap on Friday that isn’t a certainty, but it sounds like something the team might want to do, and otherwise mentioning that time seems quite unnecessary.

            I have to agree that it is of some comfort for Renault and teams using the engine that they improved the situation (some?), but without more information we can’t know they are fine now.

            Certainly that says nothing about how many ‘little things’ Red Bull will have to address before they can run, though we do know Lotus are about as well off as Caterham at the least.

          3. Its an interesting question Matt, but I take it from the wording used by several reputable journalists (see Adam Coopers article for example) that Lotus did in fact use both their 2 filming days allowed.

          4. BasCB, several articles have mentioned it, but I’m not convinced at all. Adam Cooper specifically references the Sporting Regulations: “Lotus (…) had two 100kms days available under the FIA sporting regulations. ” So he is interpreting the sporting regulations as well.

            These are the official FIA F1 Sporting Regulations for 2014: http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/file/1-2014%20SPORTING%20REGULATIONS%202013-12-18_0.pdf . You’ll find the part about the PE’s under 22.1.

            As I read it, both TCC’s and PE’s can span multiple days. Firstly because the regulations don’t state this event can only span one day. Secondly because the regulations clearly say “date(s) and intended duration of the test” (22.1, iv) ).

        2. Having looked at the 2014 Sporting Regulations, I think you are right. They probably only used up one of their promotional events. @MattDS @bascb

  11. Graham Hill also did great on his return to Lotus, he fared well against the prodigy Jim Clark

    1. @peartree Yes I had heard. Pity I wasn’t around to see these giants in action. Hill, Surtees, Clark, Stewart, Brabham, Gurney, Rindt, Amon, Ickx etc. Real heroes those 60-s guys!

  12. Keith with all respect but the whole topic is a mess and it distract the main topic, when a certain topic goes about, let’s say Red Bull their should not be link about other things that has nothing to do with the Red Bull topic, because now you have links about Renault, Nortbert Haug, Anthony Hamilton, foto’s of a McLaren. Keep it bit in order please.

    1. I think you’ll find that’s why Keith calls some of his articles ‘Round-ups’. Sometimes we pick up on the main topic, sometimes it’s a subtopic that gets more attention…bottom line is it’s all spelled out for us to comment on or not, no matter whether it is in a round-up, or a ‘pure’ topic.

    2. Welcome to F1F as you must be new here :). Every day at 00:01 UK time, a round-up is published that includes links to interesting F1 articles of the previous 24 hours that did not justify an article on their own. On top of that, the daily round-up also includes interesting tweets, the comment of the day and “on this day in F1”.

      @concalvez00

    3. I’m afraid you don’t seem to understand how a round-up works.

  13. However seriously Seb and Mark took the “Multi 21 Incident”, I can’t help chuckling about it :)

Comments are closed.