Team: please log in to view this image Red Bull Racing Base: please log in to view this image Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom Team principal: Christian Horner Technical director(s): Pierre Waché, Adrian Newey (Chief Technical Officer) Race drivers: please log in to view this image Max VERSTAPPEN1 please log in to view this image Sergio PÉREZ11 Chassis:RB18 Engine: *Red Bull Powertrains (Honda V6 Turbo) Well- we could talk for hours about the how’s what’s and whys of Abu Dhabi- but the bottom line remains that Red Bull and Max Verstappen were the first team to break the Mercedes domination when they edged a thrilling and close WDC title battle at the end of last year. Max comes in as reigning champion and it will be interesting to see how he handles that- though I suspect he will take it in stride like he does with his racing in general. New cars give Sergio Perez a better chance of a level footing so this will be a great measure of Sergio this year, whilst we also await Adrian Neweys brilliant mind with regards to how he has interpreted the new regulations. Will they hit the ground running and fight for the title again straight away, or will they be playing a little catch up? We await to see!
4 hours to go until the big reveal and we all get to gawp at the "nowhere near" the final design car the use for launch. This season especially with all the aero work i can see a lot of teams just not bringing carious bits to the first teat.
Considering Red Bull's social media team got caught out for recycling images of them "applying the finishing touches" to the car from last season, safe to say the livery won't be changing much.
I think we all want a ooohhh moment seeing some dohickey or other here just to see someone has come up with something amazing. But I sincerely doubt anyone will want to reveal a secret weapon until race 1 or last test at earliest. Would love to see red bull having a big dirty anchor hanging off the back as their version of the regs required it.
they are showing nothing. this is not a car launch and if the rest are like this they'll get no sponsor bonus. All I saw was a little effort at a barge board type thing in front and a support under the mirrors to be another aero foil. aside from that its an hour of pointlessness. rather like everything from Christian Horner
Sure there's plenty of parts on there that aren't the final pieces, but boy that thing looks proper tidy!
It's a repainted fia show car. Nothing more than a sponsor announcement for oracle. At least Haas made some effort to pretend its the actual car.
front wheel covers are fairly rough. I think those are mandated a certain away but the first thing to mess with in development imo Theres a bit of barge board detail, the floor and the engine covers look like they are sweeping in and tight. The front wing imo is a painted basic model right form the first f1 scoping so thers literally no way thats the final wing shark fin on the engine cover. front suspension is not exactly looking all that, they almost snuck the camera down but not really. again probably just last years design lol. basically a series of shots of sponsor logos.
in short i aint watching another thing til test day 1 cos this didn't even entertain and distract from work.
I am surprised that with the larger wheel rims they aren't tanking advantage of that with some colour or sponsors logo. I do wonder if these launches are actually worth doing at all as the cars don't represent what will be at first 'unofficial' test let alone at first race. You can't blame them as any slight detail might be picked up by competitors who hadn't thought of that implementation if they showed anything like the real car.
It's all for sponsors and I'm sure.haas said get the fake car out first so they would get some attention. By the time the middle teams in the launch schedule come.out nobody at all will be listening/watching
I'm just happy seeing the liveries on these new format cars. The RBR looks pretty damn sweet Mostly looking forward to the Ferrari. Red and black here we come!
WOW just read that their deal with Oracle is worth $100 mill a year for 5 years!!!! and they are now Oracle Red Bull Racing!!! So that's 2/3 or their budget sorted!!! OK so that does exclude drivers salary and a few top earners but that must be not far off half their budget! It's now clean why Red Bull want to push the budget cap higher in what ever way they can i.e. Sprint races. They have more money than they can spend in F1. Must be so frustrating
The mock-up car from last year looked awful, but that was mainly down to the awful paint job which made it look a fairground ride. I really like how clean these new cars will look, and just that bit more 21st century with the skinnier tyres and curved wing end plates.
Have to admit the launches haven’t been special thus far and testing will be where we really see what the heck is going on these cars. McLaren on Friday will be a good clue as they normally do the best or fullest launches - if they come with a basic bitch car as well then absolutely may as well just tune in for testing Horner as much as said the car in Bahrain will look very different and actually he expects there to be constant change in the opening weeks as teams learn, borrow and converge on ideas.
I think I'm just glad they didn't go with a "SUPER MAX WDC ORANJE ARMY" celebration livery. I can't even see a single reference to it on the revealed car. Mclaren are the only team expected to launch something other than the show car shown at Silverstone last year. The other teams bought that exact chassis for the purpose of livery launches.