There's been much anticipation to see the all-new 2018 Red Bull, especially as the 2017 RB13 was initially a let-down in both design and performance. But all credit to Red Bull, who soon regained the lost ground and ended last season up to speed with Ferrari and Mercedes. Revealed today in its shakedown 'special edition' livery the RB14 is clearly ahead of the curve in design and this bodes well for a competitive year.
Whereas 2017 brought huge regulation changes, 2018 has far fewer new design rules to accommodate. Once we get into the season the race-by-race updates will focus on front and bargeboard updates, over the winter the work for the teams has been to integrate the Halo, remove the shark fin and re-engineer aspects of the car's design not possible during a busy season. For each car launched so far, the common re-engineering theme has been the sidepods. For Red Bull this is no different, although they have taken a very different approach.
What we have in the RB14 a clean think at the rules and what other teams have been doing. So far Red Bull haven't made it clear the level of involvement by Adrian Newey on the car's design. He stepped away from the new car's design in 2017, but with windtunnel problems hurting the cars performance, he was soon drafted back in to help the design team catch up on development. While I suspect Newey will still want to pursue other projects with Red Bull Technologies, some aspects of the car's design do bear his hallmark.
Design
We can largely ignore the front wing, nose and much of the bargeboards. These are developments of the late 2017 parts and also the easiest to replace as testing proceeds towards the first race. Instead it's the middle of the car that is the big area of new development -- the sidepods, crash structures and sidepod vanes.
There's lots of factors driving development in this area -- firstly the Halo. This crash structure affects the cooling flow into the roll hoop inlet and it adds weight high up affecting the centre of gravity. Secondly, the rule changes last year led teams to work the diffuser harder for more downforce with less drag. Ferrari realised the obstruction of the sidepod could be offset if it was laid out differently and gained a large chunk of performance from the front shape of the 'pods.
What Red Bull have done with the RB14 follows approaches likely to be taken by most teams. Wanting the cooling, centre of gravity and diffuser performance gains, they have restructured the side of the car.
Firstly, the side impact protection spars have been lowered to below the inlet, this places the weight lower to partially offset the Halo's weight. Secondly, this change also pushes the inlet sidepod much higher and the resulting undercut in the sidepod is much larger. The higher inlet then takes up a cleaner airflow and the horizontal vanes ahead of the inlet can be arranged to help direct airflow down into the sidepod's cooling ducts.
But, the biggest gain and the primary reason for this sidepod shape is the increase in space below the inlet. Air caught in this undercut is directed down around the sidepod along the floor and runs over the diffuser creating more downforce.
Red Bull has achieved this and created a very narrow sidepod along the way. In fact, the jelly mould-like shape is similar the early Newey Red Bulls (RB5, RB6) -- these also directed the hot air from the radiators out of the fin formed in the top bodywork. This similar shape along with the detachable shark fin bodywork section suggest similar tricks may be employed this year.
To the side of the inlet are new vanes arranged in a mix of Ferrari and Mercedes concepts, these both direct airflow back long the car, keeping the front tyre turbulence away from the bodywork and even create a little downforce directly from the horizontal slot.
Other clever ideas are the front suspension, the taller undercut in the sidepods wants more airflow to drive flow the diffuser, so Red Bull have raised the entire front suspension. This can be seen by the top wishbone pivot being outside of the wheel, a similar trick employed by Toro Rosso and Mercedes last year. While the wishbone is unusually mounted to the chassis on a side extension. But it's the added height of the lower wishbone that's the big gain, as this frees up space for airflow to reach the sidepod undercut, driving diffuser performance.
Renault
Under the skin there are no doubt changes to the Red bull's suspension, cooling and gearbox, but the key change will be what Renault have packaged into their new power unit. 2017 was the fourth year of pain for the manufacturer since F1's switch to the new power units. Lacking power and reliability, much of the development to improve the power unit and especially the MGU-H hybrid system was done in public. Whilst painful, this process may well pay dividends for the Red Bull, as the new 2018 power unit should benefit from all the lessons learnt in those breakdowns and subsequent redesigns.
Overall the car looks to be far better prepared than the 2017 car at this stage of the year. Also, the momentum from last year should help keep Red Bull competitive. There's no reason they shouldn't be in the mix with Ferrari and Mercedes from the first race.