He will be approaching this crisis in his usual calm, philosophical manner,
but his technical team will be working flat out at Milton Keynes to remedy
the issues.
Frustratingly for Newey, as Gary Anderson, a former designer of race-winning
Formula One cars, notes, it is a situation of which he cannot be in full
control.
“I would think Adrian is a very frustrated person. If it’s in his hands to
address it, then there’s nobody better, however some of it is with Renault
and out of his hands.”
Newey is famous for pushing rules to the limit, and being extremely aggressive
in how he shapes his cars. But that strength appears to have left his team
floundering in the different landscape of 2014.
“They haven’t left any room for manoeuvre. They’ve gone too aggressive,”
Anderson says.
“Adrian and the Red Bull team haven’t won four world championships, drivers
and constructors, without going to the extremes. But when you’re starting
with a new package, there has to be a learning curve.
“It looks as though they didn’t give themselves room to have that
learning curve, because they pushed the limits to the maximum from day one.
They’re fighting that right now.”
In the second half of 2013, when Vettel marched to a record nine consecutive
victories, Red Bull were the envy of the paddock. Lewis Hamilton and
Fernando Alonso looked across at the Red Bull garage in awe and jealousy at
their almost unfathomable dominance.
Not any longer.
At the first test in Jerez, team boss Christian Horner put on his best poker
face to dismiss the troubles as “nothing major”.
Just 21 laps were completed, and while Newey left early to return to the
drawing board, the Milton Keynes-based team faced something of a drama,
rather than a fully-fledged crisis.
After last week’s test in Bahrain, in which they uncovered new problems,
unrelated to those which blighted their running in Jerez, it is obvious Red
Bull are in deep trouble.
Radically new regulations were in a theoretical world supposed to favour
Newey. Apart from one dubious innovation by Brawn in 2009, Red Bull were
always a step ahead of everyone else under the last set of rules, in large
part due to Newey’s mastering of the aerodynamic side.
His latest offering, the RB10, was greeted with typical enthusiasm before it
took to the track in southern Spain, particularly his solution to Formula
One’s ugly nose problem. But from day one they have been a long way behind
their rivals Mercedes and Ferrari in both mileage and outright pace.
Part of the blame has been placed on their engine suppliers, Renault, who are
clearly struggling to adapt to the sport’s new smaller, greener, and more
complicated engines. But as Anderson says, the team also face “inherent Red
Bull problems”.
The team’s newest member, Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo, admitted in
Bahrain that some of their issues have not involved the French car giant. On
the final day he admitted: “In all honesty it wasn’t a great day. I guess we
need more time.”
Time is something the world champions lack. Eight days of pre-season testing
are gone, and just four remain. The lights will go out at the first race in
Melbourne in just over two weeks.
When Horner made his original prediction that possibly just half the cars will
reach the chequered flag in Australia, it is highly unlikely he had his own
two machines in mind, but on form they will struggle to complete the race
distance, let alone in a competitive time.
At present the best bet, from Anderson at least, is that Red Bull may be
scrapping for being the sixth or seventh fastest team in Melbourne as they
struggle behind the Mercedes teams and Ferrari.
“Sebastian is one of the gifted few who will know what the situation is with
the car, and if he’s being frosty then I would think he doesn’t like what he
knows,” says Anderson. And as one former Red Bull insider notes: “There will
be some choice language emanating from Salzburg for sure.”
Horner attempted to deflect attention in Bahrain by declaring Mercedes are
favourites. But regardless of the mind games, the fact remains that no team
are better placed than the world champions to dig themselves out of the deep
hole they are in.
They have one of, if not the biggest budgets and some of the finest facilities
and minds in the sport. Their future is still very much in their hands, and
as Anderson notes: “It wouldn’t surprise me if they came along in Bahrain
and did 150 laps each day, or if they did 10 laps each day.”
If they can emerge from this crisis victorious, it will be Red Bull and
Vettel’s greatest achievement to date. For now, the team will just be
desperate to put laps on the board in the next four days in the desert.
Blessed laps.
Tales of the tape: How top teams have prepared
Red Bull: Laps completed 137
Not the start the world champions will have wanted, by any stretch of the
imagination.
They have not been able to run the car for longer than 12 laps at one time,
and while testing times don’t mean much, they were six seconds of Mercedes
pace in Bahrain and unreliable.
Huge amounts to do.
Ferrari: Laps completed 538
Could be the dark horse for 2014, largely because no one seems totally sure of
where they are.
They have managed plenty of laps, and while they have not been outright
fastest, their running has been solid and without too many problems.
Difficult to read at this stage.
Mercedes. Laps completed 624
Undoubtedly, they have had the best pre-season.
They have completed the most laps, suffered very few reliability problems –
apart from a front wing failure for Lewis Hamilton in Jerez – and they even
managed to get on to qualifying simulation on the final day of the second
test.
Rosberg was just one second off last year’s pole time too.
McLaren. Laps completed 541
Will be quietly satisfied with their two tests so far. While they are
probably not the fastest – Jenson Button even indicated he thought Mercedes
would be on pole come Melbourne – they have come up with the one innovation,
with their suspension, that everyone else in the paddock is looking to copy
or have banned.
Williams Laps. completed 498
Williams, who had a torrid 2013, have been the surprise package so far.
Their technical chief Pat Symonds said the car has “run like a dream”, and
they are the only team not to cause a red flag in testing.
The switch to Mercedes power seems inspired, and the car looks quick.