Red Bull expect China to reveal true performance

2015 Malaysian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Red Bull believe the Chinese Grand Prix will give a better indication of how competitive they are than the first two races of the season did.

The team had a frustrating start to the season in the first two races due to power unit drive-ability problems in Australia and severe brake wear in Malaysia.

Chief engineer for car engineering Paul Monaghan said Red Bull will correct mistakes it made in the first two races this weekend.

“If you look back in the short-term – Australia race we had a few stumbles but one car finished,” he said. “Malaysia wasn’t our finest hour, we made a series of small mistakes which cost us dearly.”

“Here we’ll correct those and start to see where we sit in the pecking order.”

Red Bull were beaten by both Toro Rossos in Malaysia, but Daniel Ricciardo ended today’s second practice session third-quickest behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari. Monaghan admitted the car’s weaknesses aren’t confined to its Renault engine – which the team has strongly criticised – but its chassis as well.

“The team is focussing on what it perceives as its weaknesses,” he said. “As [Ferrari technical director] James [Allison] has alluded to, we probably lack a little bit of downforce compared to some of the others.”

“We’ll chase the aerodynamic performance the car. How we chase that is our business.”

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

    Browse all 2015 Chinese Grand Prix articles

    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.

    28 comments on “Red Bull expect China to reveal true performance”

    1. Can’t believe I’m willing for a competitive Red-Bull but it seems such a waste to see Ricicardio in midfield after he wiped the floor with Vettel last season.

      1. *Ricciardo, apologies

      2. I know it’s quite enjoyable for people to keep on saying that Ricciardo wiped the floor with Vettel last season. I don’t begrudge that but arguably last season after the rule changes, Vettel was the driver that was most affected. Having said that I do believe Ricciardo would offer a stern challenge to most drivers on the grid in the same machinery also I believe Vettel handled the situation better after realizing he couldn’t change the rules to his advantage.

        1. but arguably last season after the rule changes, Vettel was the driver that was most affected

          A 4 time WDC should have been more adaptable. Also, I don’t see how that negates Broom’s statement that he did indeed wipe the floor with Vettel

          1. HamiltonNumber1
            10th April 2015, 11:10

            @todfod Spot on mate Vet is a great driver no doubt no one wins 4 being a bad driver, but seriously whilst he aint as consistent, Vet is making Kimi look like 2005 Kimi all over again. Alo wiped the floor with Kimi. Kimi is past his peak and is suddenly flying, I wonder why that is? Because the Ferrari is super quick. Man i feel for Alo but it is also his own fault. Why he though Mclaren who have one Constructors in over a decade and 1 WC since 99. He should of stuck it out again to see the Hamilton situation at Merc, he jumped a season too early. Sad how Alo and Ham have less titles imo. No doubt Alo is kicking himself he is obviosuly going to say no, but Alo could fight for the title in this Ferrari.

          2. @brum55 @mim5 @todfod Interestingly “wiped the floor with” is the very same phrase used in the first comment in response to last year’s article comparing the performances of different pairs of team mates (by @pmccarthy_is_a_legend). But it wasn’t applied to Ricciardo and Vettel – it was about Alonso and Raikkonen.

            Alonso took 74% of Ferrari’s points, out-qualified Raikkonen 84% of the time, spent 84% of racing laps ahead and finished ahead 94% of the time. The corresponding figures for Ricciardo relative to Vettel are 58%, 63%, 51% and 78%. It Ricciardo did “wipe the floor” with Vettel last year, then we need a new and far harsher phrase to describe the margin between the two Ferrari drivers.

            1. Mr win or lose
              10th April 2015, 20:06

              Alonso’s 2014 performance was really astonishing.
              See also: https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/2014-model-based-driver-rankings/

            2. Agree with @keithcollantine.

              I think Ric’s performance was magnified by the fact that he had come into a 4 time WDC’s team and overshadowed him right off the bat.

            3. I’m as big of a fan of Fernando as most, but I don’t believe Kimi is that bad either. Kimi had lots of issues with last year’s car and I am sure for a myriad of reasons. He had a horrid year while Alonso maximized every ounce possible. I feel like these eyepopping percentages are owed more to Kimi’s underachievement than Fernando having a career year. Basically Fernando is being made to look like “wiped the floor” with Kimi when in reality Kimi faltered and never even got a footing on said “floor”.

            4. @keithcollantine
              I’m sure we could think of something although it may not abide by the policies and guidelines you have for us on this site! :D
              @jaymenon10 agree 100%. Remember hearing a lot of disappointed fans after RB announced DR would be SV’s partner in 2014. How wrong they (inc me) were

      3. Vettel scored 167pts, Ricciardo 238. Not exactly wiping the floor. Alonso did wipe the flooor with kimi but Ricciardo just outscored vettel. Sure, ricciardo got 2 wins but looking at the picture overall I don’t think the situation was as drastic “as wiping the floor with vettel”.

        1. Ricciardo got 3 wins.

    2. Simon (@weeniebeenie)
      10th April 2015, 10:55

      What they really mean is “China has a whacking big straight and we’ll use this to best vindicate our ranting against the Renault engines”.

    3. I don’t believe adaptability is instant. It takes time, and as a 4x consecutive WDC with different rules it would surely take a bit of time to adapt to new rules that were arguably put in place to end your dominance. Alonso wiped the floor with Kimi, Ricciardo was able to extract more performance from a car that didn’t suit Vettel. Vettel did try to adapt to the car and ultimately to the situation he found himself in.

      1. HamiltonNumber1
        10th April 2015, 11:14

        When Ham was beaten he lost to Button but still was just as fast, basically all year there was an inevetible feel Ric had the legs on Vet. I hate to say it is the car as it is unfair as you could say well Hamilton was lucky last year. But Kimi is on Vet pace all year really he just is not as consistent. The supposed slower qualifier Alo use to destroy Kimi. This race for instance looks a a close fight im almost sure we can agree if Kimi is looking this fast Alo would be even quicker.

    4. kenneth chapman
      10th April 2015, 11:06

      @ mim s are yoyu saying that the design parameters of the new PU’s were cast in 2011 to prevent red bull winning in 2014? seriously…..

    5. First of all, it’s common knowledge that Mercedes and Ferrari focused their attention to 2014 much earlier than Redbull / Renault hence Vettels 9 wins in the 2nd half of 2013. I also believe with Merc & Ferrari had an advantage with building their engine and chassis in house. Also if Hamilton can blame missing FP1 for not winning the Malaysian GP, Vettel is surely allowed to have a troublesome season having had a non-existent pre-season testing

      1. That last sentence just shows how much you’re grasping at straws. Ricciardo was in the same situation and he wiped the floor with Vettel.

        Besides, there is a huge difference between not being able to set the car up for qualy and the race by (missing FP1 and most of FP2) and losing some overal testing during winter.

        1. @patrickl Riccardio was also in his first season in a new team up against someone who had been there for five years and had a car tailored to his liking. If anything Riccardio should have been at a bigger disadvantage!!

          1. @brum55

            up against someone who had been there for five years and had a car tailored to his liking

            I guess you know nothing about diffusers and Vettel his driving style then…

            1. He also knows nothing of Markos comments this week which he stated the 2014 red bull wasn’t designed around vettel, who was it designed for? Vettel knew was going to Ferrari as early as fall 2013… Did red bull?

          2. I believe they were brand new cars only are they then tailored to your liking as the season progresses. Most teams end up tailoring a car to the teammate with most points in the championship. Therefore as the season wore on the car was probably tailored to Ricciardos liking an delta not forget that after Vettel announced his move to Ferrari, he wasn’t privy to most of the updates being brought to the car

        2. @patrickl Vettel also had the lions share of Redbulls reliability woes last season in both the races and free practice sessions.

          1. Also, there were quite a few times that Red Bull used different strategies and at all times, Vettel was at disadvantage.

            But I think we are missing the point here, comparing a multi world champion, who realised that his car is 1 second off pace, and from what we later learned, already in talks to switch teams, with a young, talented driver who wanted to make his mark in his first year at a top team.

            As you understand, their psychology and incentive were miles apart.

            But somehow, the vast majority of fans hates Vettel for some weird reason, just remember booing him at the pontium at the last half of 2013 season.

    6. I’m just trying to bring a point that if the current champion can be hindered by 1afternoon of running then the lack of testing could prove to be a hindrance towards the season both in setting up the car and psychologically adapting to the NEW regulations.
      In no way was Ricciardo in the same situation. He started driving in F1 with HRT then Toro Rosso which were lesser cars/teams compared to the redbull he was eventually promoted to. He probably horned his driving skills during those years and was able to adapt quicker to a car with less downforce(for Vettel), probably a car with better downforce for him. Vettel on the other hand had to accept that he had to change/adapt the way he drove during his title winning seasons

      1. However u sugarcoated it, Ric beat Vettel hands down, winning 3 races to Vettel’s zero. If the new formula doesn’t suit Vettel’s driving style why all of a sudden he is doing fine against a driver that faced a similar humiliation against his team mate last season? The fact is Ric beat Vettel in the same car in his first year with the team, and for that fact he is better than Vettel regardless of how many WDC Vettel won racing against a different team mate. It’s arguable that Vet won’t be a 4 WDC if Ric was his team mate in those four seasons.

    7. RedBull is looking like themselves again at least the cars performance and the straight line speed is more within the 2014 range. All in all RBR made another blunder with the Kvyat brake event, Horner told sky that RBR told Daniil not to brake but Daniil’s radio message says otherwise, it was clear they were having a brake cooling issue and then Daniil kept braking eventually it ended up with a predictable crash.

    Comments are closed.