Red Bull Racing RB15 speculation thread

[carisi2k]

I think the rb15 will be an evolution of the rb14 since the RB14 was clearly the best chassis as seen at china, monaco, austria, mexico and even brazil. The Rb15 will benefit massively from the much smaller Honda power unit compared to the huge lump of alloy known as a Renault power unit. The Honda has most likely been running on the red bull dynos for quite some time and so it should be extremely competitive immediately.

I am not at all worried about reliability but just a tad upset there isn't going to be an Australian driving it. Honda finally having 2 teams should help them in pre season testing to advance.

[GPR-A]

The biggest question mark would be on Honda's reliability.
In 2015, they used 12 & 11 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2016, they used 8 & 6 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2017, they used 10 & 9 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2018, they used 8 & 8 PU elements per driver respectively.

With that, it would be miracle if they could manage a season with just 5 PU elements per driver. Even if they achieve that miracle, Red Bull is not going to be a contender for 2019.

The Mercedes & Ferrari spec 3 came in August and how much progress these two manufacturers have made on the PU front would only be evident in Melbourne. While we saw the Honda spec 3 a month back. The question is, how much progress would Honda make for Melbourne, which is around 4 months of times from Spec 3, whereas Mercedes and Ferrari would have worked for almost 7 months for their next Spec.

So, Honda has a mountain to climb to help Red Bull become championship contender. It's the dual miracle that Honda has to achieve in terms of Power and Reliability. It would only be blind optimism that would make one think Red Bull is going to fight for championship.

[F1NAC]

Bear in mind that this year most of elements where changed for purpose of testing improved parts as STR was basically test bench for 2019. To me I'm more curious about packaging, since RB said that they will rather do job around engine than opposite.

[Big Tea]

The biggest question mark would be on Honda's reliability.
In 2015, they used 12 & 11 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2016, they used 8 & 6 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2017, they used 10 & 9 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2018, they used 8 & 8 PU elements per driver respectively.

With that, it would be miracle if they could manage a season with just 5 PU elements per driver. Even if they achieve that miracle, Red Bull is not going to be a contender for 2019.

The Mercedes & Ferrari spec 3 came in August and how much progress these two manufacturers have made on the PU front would only be evident in Melbourne. While we saw the Honda spec 3 a month back. The question is, how much progress would Honda make for Melbourne, which is around 4 months of times from Spec 3, whereas Mercedes and Ferrari would have worked for almost 7 months for their next Spec.

So, Honda has a mountain to climb to help Red Bull become championship contender. It's the dual miracle that Honda has to achieve in terms of Power and Reliability. It would only be blind optimism that would make one think Red Bull is going to fight for championship.

I know it was discussed previously, but I still think Honda / RBR will be better off scheduling fresh engines when required. If they push and the engine blows mid race, it is worse than starting 10 places down and still making the finish. One way there is a possibility of points, the other no points, and penalties next race anyway.

[gandharva]

I think they will plan with 4-6 engines for 2019 and on top of that use TR a race or two in advance when new specs will be introduced. Constructors P3 should be a breeze with that schedule and they could also win more races than in 2018 when executed well towards the chassis strenghts.

A step forward it will be!

[ME4ME]

It would only be blind optimism that would make one think Red Bull is going to fight for championship.

2019 might be too early but this partnership has so much potential, I'd say there is a good chance that the next cyle of domination will come from Red Bull Honda. Honda seems to have hit rock bottom at the end of 2017 and have been on their way up ever since. They are probably more dedicated than any of the other manufacturers by now to redeem themselves. Red Bull have almost always been top class at what they do. Red Bull Honda also have the full dedicated support of Mobil1. They have a top driver who's only going to get better. The ingredients for success are all there, it's only a matter of time.

[carisi2k]

The biggest question mark would be on Honda's reliability.
In 2015, they used 12 & 11 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2016, they used 8 & 6 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2017, they used 10 & 9 PU elements per driver respectively.
In 2018, they used 8 & 8 PU elements per driver respectively.

With that, it would be miracle if they could manage a season with just 5 PU elements per driver. Even if they achieve that miracle, Red Bull is not going to be a contender for 2019.

The Mercedes & Ferrari spec 3 came in August and how much progress these two manufacturers have made on the PU front would only be evident in Melbourne. While we saw the Honda spec 3 a month back. The question is, how much progress would Honda make for Melbourne, which is around 4 months of times from Spec 3, whereas Mercedes and Ferrari would have worked for almost 7 months for their next Spec.

So, Honda has a mountain to climb to help Red Bull become championship contender. It's the dual miracle that Honda has to achieve in terms of Power and Reliability. It would only be blind optimism that would make one think Red Bull is going to fight for championship.

You need to take this in to perspective. Very few of those engines were for reliability reasons. Brendan lost 2 PU's in accidents at barcelona and canada. That barcelona incident in particular wrote off just about everything on the car. It was clear that Honda was using Toro Rosso as a test bench and yet they were able to have a much better result then all the other mid field teams with a fourth place at Bahrain.

Spec 3 was in regards to 2018 engines. Honda will have a new engine for 2019 just as all the other manufacturers have. This sort of experimentation won't be tolerated or needed in the RB15 since there will still be a toro rosso test bench.

[GPR-A]

You need to take this in to perspective. Very few of those engines were for reliability reasons. Brendan lost 2 PU's in accidents at barcelona and canada. That barcelona incident in particular wrote off just about everything on the car. It was clear that Honda was using Toro Rosso as a test bench and yet they were able to have a much better result then all the other mid field teams with a fourth place at Bahrain.

You can reason out, if it is just one instance. It's 4 years in a row! If you start lining up those reasons for 4 years, you have an endless story of misery.

This sort of experimentation won't be tolerated or needed in the RB15 since there will still be a toro rosso test bench.

Easy said than done.

[carisi2k]

you need to forget about the new mclaren years. It is clear now that Mclaren was the problem.

[bigblue]

you need to forget about the new mclaren years. It is clear now that Mclaren was the problem.

Even the biggest Honda fan would admit there were major reliability problems on Honda's side during that time, particularly in 2015 and a lot of 2017. The engine was vastly improved in reliability with STR, though the engine changes due to development or accidents mean that on the whole, engines have run for fewer races than they'd need to in a serious championship challenge. So it's promising, but there's still something to prove (I think one of Gasly's engines did run the required number of races, but that was unusual last year due to the factors already mentioned).

[Big Tea]

you need to forget about the new mclaren years. It is clear now that Mclaren was the problem.

Even the biggest Honda fan would admit there were major reliability problems on Honda's side during that time, particularly in 2015 and a lot of 2017. The engine was vastly improved in reliability with STR, though the engine changes due to development or accidents mean that on the whole, engines have run for fewer races than they'd need to in a serious championship challenge. So it's promising, but there's still something to prove (I think one of Gasly's engines did run the required number of races, but that was unusual last year due to the factors already mentioned).

It was interesting to hear Otmar Sszafnauer say in the vid someone posted here yesterday that they had similar vibration problems when they fit the engine to the chassis, that had not shown up in testing. Seems it was not just a Honda fail, but something that happens to the best.

RBR should at least have this part sorted, or at least in hand. Honda has to be responsible for much of the problem, but they seem to have gone on a new learning curve as soon as they got to level ground with the project they were working.

As long as there is no huge change, and as STR are using the same back end as RBR, they should at least hit the ground running reliably, even it they do not have the power they want. TBH, I don't think it will be that big a job to make it more reliable than the Renault was in RBR last year, power will depend as much on what everyone else finds over the winter as much as what Honda find.

[Genesis]

The new regulations in addition with the switch to a different engine makes it rather difficult to foresee what might happen next year, but there's been some interesting comments about Honda and their relationship to Red bull.
Beyond reliability, Red bull clearly stated they want more power from the engine, and regardless of the solution employed, Honda shouldn't worry about its packaging and Red bull would compensate on the design of the car to accommodate more power (basically the opposite of the size zero at McLaren).
After having seen the recent Aston martin Valkyrie engine presentation, it's clearly pointed that Adrian Newey is not only guiding aero, but also very aware of engine packaging.
My point is, it's lovely from Red bull to say "do your best engine wise Honda, we can compensate on the car", but I highly doubt they would pass on the opportunity to package the car as aggressively as possible from the start.

Their packaging (in my opinion) as been causing them more issues on the Renault engine than the two other team, already in the v8 era they had reliability issues (2009, 2010). But that's most likely because they are asking more of the engine than anybody else (drilled holes during winter testing are a good example).

Based on that, are they going to keep their X-wing side-pod arrangement, make it more extreme or find something else? I do think that design allows for more freedom than a more conventional side impact structure layout.

In an ideal situation, with enough power from the engine they don't need to be that aggressive on their gearbox and internals, creating a virtuous circle of performance and reliability.
If both parties are open for mutual change, the result will be almighty on the track.

Realistically, with the one year continuous test of the engine by Torro Rosso, by now they should have a descent idea of what's what and be able to integrate it early enough in the drafting of the 2019 chassis.

Some references in case some need them:
https://fr.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... t/3195390/ (Engine packaging. French article)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8ZrN__nmA (Valkyrie video, it's worth watching everything)

According to Helmut Marko, Red Bull were already able to reach this year's levels of downforce with the 2019 front wing and they were able to do that quite some time ago.

And then the news of them telling Honda that they basically have free reign over the engine dimensions for 2019 came out and I immediately thought to myself "what if they're quite a step ahead of everyone else in the development of the 2019 car?"

Think about it, tight packaging and pushing the engine right to the very limits has been a marquee feature in the concept of the red bull car for many years. There's a little bit of Renault's engine to blame there but mostly it's a trait of Adrian Newey. So for them to change this philosophy is quite odd.

I think Red Bull has found something. 4 months ago they were talking about 2019 being a transition year and they've gone from that to openly declaring a title challenge. Even Helmut Marko is acting confident. But there have also been rumours in the f1 paddock that the rb15 is going to be right up there next year.

Here's an interesting quote from Helmut:

We have planned the title. The Honda engine already has more horsepower than the Renault. And what's coming should be enough so that we can ride on our own in the front.

And then another quote where he talks about the 2019 regulations basically being worthless.

We had planned the completion of the car earlier this year. We want to do that next year too. Now came even the pointless regulation change to the front wing, which costs us around 15 million euros. As far as the downforce is concerned, we are already more or less at the current level. And the overtake problem has no effect. We do not need to talk about the budget cap when making such decisions

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ingeplant/
English translation in my quotes was from a user on reddit.

I think red bull is absolutely going to be up there with Mercedes and Ferrari next year and it wouldn't surprise me if they start 2019 with a very strong package.
The rb14 is in my opinion the best chassis for the 2018 season and since the second half of the season it's looked very strong as well as being exceptionally friendly on its tyres. Also red bull will have all the data that they need on the Honda engine directly from Toro Rosso which is a huge bonus.

The Honda engine itself, yes there is a question mark on the reliability and even though that most of the grid penalties were developmental I still can't believe that the engine is entirely bulletproof, but I do not believe we can use Honda's past track record with reliability as a basis for 2019 as the engine has gone through quite some substantial changes structurally to boost reliability. There is also a significant difference in size between the 2017 engine fitted in the McLaren and the 2018 engine fitted in the Toro Rosso. It is very visible that on the 2017 engine the size was indeed compromised for the McLaren packaging.
This year they had Toro Rosso work around their engine when it came to packaging and it seems to have done the trick. At the size that the Honda engine is now, it is much more durable overall.

This is why I think red bull isn't going to mess with that formula. Just let Honda do their thing.

When it comes to power, they seem to have a "qualifying mode" that works decently and in my opinion from what I've seen over the course of the year is that their engine is more powerful than the Renault engine in qualifying however it struggles to consistently deliver a high level of performance during the race.
This mean's that their max power is quite good however they're unable to consistently deliver it over the entire race length.
There could be a bunch of issues causing this, the engine could be too heavy on fuel, it could be due to ERS problems which Honda had in the past, or it might be something else (Honda are investing heavily on the turbo right now)

I think that by the start of 2019, Honda should have the engine at a solid all round performance, and while it most certainly will not be as strong as the Mercedes and Ferrari engines they will definitely be a lot closer and I dare say they could potentially be quite a bit ahead of Renault who are using an entirely new concept engine in 2019 and that may cause some difficulties.

I have been very bullish about the red bull Honda partnership ever since it was announced and I do believe it can win the title next year.

I don't want to say something outrageous and say that they WILL win the title, but most of the time when there's a regulation change, something unexpected happens.

[muramasa]

You need to take this in to perspective. Very few of those engines were for reliability reasons. Brendan lost 2 PU's in accidents at barcelona and canada. That barcelona incident in particular wrote off just about everything on the car. It was clear that Honda was using Toro Rosso as a test bench and yet they were able to have a much better result then all the other mid field teams with a fourth place at Bahrain.

You can reason out, if it is just one instance. It's 4 years in a row! If you start lining up those reasons for 4 years, you have an endless story of misery.

Losing 2 PUs by crashing out is losing 2 PUs by crashing out, I dont know what is so hard for you to understand this. Also after exceeding 3 PUs there is absolutely no reason to hesitate introducing fresh components and pushing back introduction of new spec by prioritizing making 7 races cycle, if there is anything suspicious just retire the unit and open up and inspect, the more specimen used in real environment the better for development.
You lack respect to sport's participants, you just want to mock Honda. 4 years? yeah Honda started development in May 2013 while others have been doing since 2010 or even before, yet their 2016 unit was better than 2015 Ferrari, this year's unit wouldve been decent in 2017 in terms of performance, so really not bad. Plus Honda started literally everything from scratch from facility to operation while others had continuous and evolving F1 operation and development, furthermore Honda is yet to recover from 2011 earthquake to this day, many machine tools got damaged and destroyed so lost chunk of internal production capacity hence have to outsource production of many components to outside suppliers, which hinders the speed of production and reaction to issues.
This is engineering sport so please respect and appreciate all makers all teams engineering effort and endeavor. All the sports is about appreciating all the participants, no sport is about laughing and mocking those who are not on top.

This sort of experimentation won't be tolerated or needed in the RB15 since there will still be a toro rosso test bench.

Easy said than done.

Spec 3 was either not planned or supposed to be less major/drastic initially but they changed strategy and decided to introduce it prematurely in order to give it real environment running right away and move up the development schedule. So to think it is difficult to not repeat it or think like spec 3 was some sort of fail is totally off the mark.

[Bill]

Before the season Honda said Str that the should expect to be competitive for the second half of the season . Spec 3 was planned for spa / monza after in season holiday but it came late so its not true to say it was not on the card

[carisi2k]

you need to forget about the new mclaren years. It is clear now that Mclaren was the problem.

Even the biggest Honda fan would admit there were major reliability problems on Honda's side during that time, particularly in 2015 and a lot of 2017. The engine was vastly improved in reliability with STR, though the engine changes due to development or accidents mean that on the whole, engines have run for fewer races than they'd need to in a serious championship challenge. So it's promising, but there's still something to prove (I think one of Gasly's engines did run the required number of races, but that was unusual last year due to the factors already mentioned).

I'm not saying there wasn't an issue with reliability in the mclaren years but clearly it was mclarens philosophy that drove the reliability issues Honda suffered. With freedom the Honda improved significantly in 2018 and most of the engine usage was down to development and not reliability.