Can Red Bull repeat their 'summer 2013' uprising?

[f1h16]

Last season before the summer break the Red Bull over one lap wasn't the fastest car on the grid, or atleast it wasn't romping away to poll with Hamilton taking pole position at both Germany and Hungary for 4 in a row by an average margin of only around a tenth. They looked beatable at Silverstone, Germany, Hungary and the title fight still looked like a fight.

After the summer break Red Bull rolled out in Spa with a car capable of dominating every single race. Despite Lewises one lap performance it would be his last pole position in 2013 with Red Bull taking every remaining pole and race win.

This years title is starting to open up a small amount. Its not open by any stretch but over the last 5 races Daniel Ricciardo has scored more points than Lewis Hamilton and only 3 points less than Nico Rosberg. A big upgrade could make this still a fight.

[mkay]

RBR's 2013 uprising was mostly if not entirely due to the revised Pirelli tyres.

[RZS10]

aaaand they can't upgrade the engine which is still a weak point, not as weak as they want us to believe but still bad compared to the Merc

[mrluke]

No.

The reason they dominated the end of 2013 is that everybody else focused on this year (2014) while RBR continued to throw development at their 2013 car.

This isn't going to happen this year.

[j2004p]

They're not going to get given back an old tyre construction that suited them perfectly whilst removing the advantage their competitors had built on the previous (new) construction this time around.

Simple

[SectorOne]

I don´t think so. I think Merc will have their 8-10th´s advantage over Red Bull all year long even if Red Bull throw everything but the kitchen sink at the car.

[Ennis]

Last year was a quirk.

You had the change of tyres, which massively benefited RBR and really hindered others.
You had a big pending rule change which would have led certain teams to cut their losses for the season and shift more and more focus to 2014.
And you had Mercedes, who did have relatively great one lap pace but absolutely horrific race pace in comparison. I've not followed F1 for decades, but I genuinely can't remember a car which was the best over one lap but so much worse during a race.

[Gaz.]

aaaand they can't upgrade the engine which is still a weak point, not as weak as they want us to believe but still bad compared to the Merc

I'm not convinced the Renault PU is down by more than a few percent, nobody breezed past any Renault powered car on Sunday even with DRS on the following car, regardless of the power plant of the following car. Someone estimated after the Bahrain GP that the Renault PU was only 40bhp down and I'd be surprised if that hasn't closed considerably since April.

[Juzh]

I'm not convinced the Renault PU is down by more than a few percent, nobody breezed past any Renault powered car on Sunday even with DRS on the following car, regardless of the power plant of the following car. Someone estimated after the Bahrain GP that the Renault PU was only 40bhp down and I'd be surprised if that hasn't closed considerably since April.

Guess you missed race at hockenheim. Who estimated 40 bhp? source plz, or I call BS.

[Gaz.]

I'm not convinced the Renault PU is down by more than a few percent, nobody breezed past any Renault powered car on Sunday even with DRS on the following car, regardless of the power plant of the following car. Someone estimated after the Bahrain GP that the Renault PU was only 40bhp down and I'd be surprised if that hasn't closed considerably since April.

Guess you missed race at hockenheim. Who estimated 40 bhp? source plz, or I call BS.

No need to be so defensive & hostile. It was mentioned in either the Bahrian testing thread or the GP thread, I'll find it tomorrow for you (or atleast Ill give it a damn good go anyway).

[Kingshark]

If the Red Bull chassis was so great, Mercedes wouldn't have dominated in Monaco. Mercedes were also comfortably the fastest car in Hungary, but lost the race because of a variety of other reasons.

Anyway Red Bull will struggle a lot in Spa and Monza. On those circuits they will likely be no match for Williams, let alone Mercedes. Even in Singapore, I still fully expect Mercedes domination unless something strange happens.

By that time, it will be too late for any other teams to catch up.

[lio007]

Unfortunately I haven't seen the race in Monacco, but did Mercedes dominate there? If I look at the results, RIC (and HAM) were 9 sec behind ROS. After them there were a bigger gap (ALO as 4th 30 sec behind ROS).

Even if the PU is not so important in Monacco IMHO I still think you have an advantage over your competitors with an outstanding PU.

[SectorOne]

Yea Mercedes were toying with Red Bull in Monaco too.
Ros pulled out one 13 and one 16 second gap on Ricciardo in the race.
So without the safety car in the middle there you´d probably be looking at a 25-30 second gap in real performance.

At the end Rosberg backs off and Hamilton caught something in his eye which led to the 9 second gap and Ricciardo right behind Hamilton.

[Juzh]

Yea Mercedes were toying with Red Bull in Monaco too.
Ros pulled out one 13 and one 16 second gap on Ricciardo in the race.
So without the safety car in the middle there you´d probably be looking at a 25-30 second gap in real performance.

At the end Rosberg backs off and Hamilton caught something in his eye which led to the 9 second gap and Ricciardo right behind Hamilton.

Ric was cruising in the early stages of his stints. Merc did have few 10ths over RB, but certainly not as much as it appeared.

[SectorOne]

They had as big of an advantage as other tracks. 4 tenths in qualifying and way more in the race as usual.
The safety car was the only thing keeping the Red Bull in the same solar system as the Merc.