F1: Red Bull plagued by reliability issues at Jerez

Defending World Champions Red Bull have suffered from severe reliability issues that have compromised their running time. The RB10, which debuted at Jerez on the 28th of January, only racked up 20 laps, none of which are anywhere near the pace set by the Williams, Ferrari, Mercedes and Mclaren. On Day 1, a turbo failure meant Vettel wasn’t able to do very many laps, and Red Bull abandoned their test campaign after they realised it was terminal. The turbo was fixed in time for day 2, but an ERS failure meant that running was limited as well. It took a while, but Vettel was able to do a few laps before retiring. At this point, Vettel was rumoured to return to Germany, while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo took over testing duties. Once again, Red Bull abandoned the test, and focused on running for Day 3. On the day itself, the ERS failed again, and it failed on Day 4 as well. Renault attributes the multiple failures to an imbalance in the engine, which is affecting the ERS recovery system(part of which is on the turbo). Also, the new turbo engines require loads of cooling, something the RB10 lacks; Newey likes to tightly package his cars, which worked for the V8s since they generated less heat than the V6s. The extra heat meant a higher rate of mechanical failure, which may have contributed to Red Bull’s unreliability. Newey and Horner returned to the factory in Milton Keynes after the test and they are rumoured to be discussing the best course of action for the current situation. If they want to get some decent data at Bahrain, they sure have a lot of catching up to do. We will know whether the RB10 will become a title contender when they finally manage to get the car to run reliably, something they hope they can achieve before Bahrain’s 2 tests on the 19th-22nd of February,  and from 27th February- 2nd March.Pictures used for illustration purposes only.

OneShift Editorial Team

03 Feb 2014

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