Did Red Bull and Renault Really Show Any Improvement at the Malaysian GP?
Like Seinfeld's Frank Costanza at Festivus, Red Bull and their engine supplier, Renault, have spent the early part of the 2015 Formula One season publicly airing their grievances with each other.
Now, a truce has been called, although Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko could not resist one last shot at the French auto company. While calling for an end to the public battle, Marko told Servus TV in Austria (h/t James Allen), "In the past we got used to winning even though our engines were not the most powerful."
Indeed, at the 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix, the Red Bulls struggled on Sepang's long straights but were able to make up time on the medium- and high-speed corners, a testament to their superior chassis design.
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The 2014 season started with a disaster in Melbourne: Only two of the four Renault-powered cars finished the race (Toro Rosso, Red Bull's sister team, is the only other outfit using Renault engines this year), and both were more than a lap behind Lewis Hamilton's winning Mercedes.
After hearing criticism from Red Bull, Renault managing director Cyril Abiteboul helpfully reminded everyone, per F1.com, that the chassis and the power unit were equally responsible for the problems in Australia.
In Malaysia, there were signs of improvement—all four Renault-powered cars finished the race—but three of them, including the two Bulls, were again one lap behind.
Last year, remember, Red Bull and Renault had a horrible time in preseason testing, and it was not until the seventh race of the season, in Montreal, that Red Bull had their breakthrough. Daniel Ricciardo won that race and Sebastian Vettel was third, after the team had managed just three podium finishes over the first six grands prix.
With that in mind, are Red Bull really that much worse off than they were at the start of last season? And, perhaps more importantly, what has happened to the gap between the Bulls and their rivals?
Take a look at the fastest laps from Mercedes, Ferrari and the two Renault teams at the first two races of the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
| Australia 2014 | 1m 32.478s | 1m 32.616s | 1m 33.066s | 1m 32.634s |
| Australia 2015 | 1m 30.945s | 1m 31.426s | 1m 32.797s | 1m 32.872s |
| Difference | -1.533s | -1.190s | -0.269s | +0.238s |
| Malaysia 2014 | 1m 43.066s | 1m 44.165s | 1m 44.289s | 1m 46.695s |
| Malaysia 2015 | 1m 42.062s | 1m 43.648s | 1m 44.514s | 1m 44.579s |
| Difference | -1.004s | -0.517s | +0.225s | -2.116s |
In terms of pure race pace, it is clear that Mercedes and Ferrari have made much bigger improvements relative to their 2014 performance. And Mercedes, of course, were already much further ahead last season—Red Bull and Ferrari were more closely matched.
The most shocking—and worrying—number is the difference between Red Bull's fastest laps at Malaysia in 2014 and 2015. While Ferrari and Mercedes were significantly quicker when they were pushing, Ricciardo's best lap was nearly a quarter-of-a-second slower than Vettel managed last year for Red Bull.
Even Toro Rosso's quickest lap, set by Max Verstappen and a two-second improvement from last year, was 2.5 seconds slower than Nico Rosberg's best lap for Mercedes.
"Absolute performance can be and will be improved while we are some way behind the front of the pack," Renault's director of operations Remi Taffin told the official Formula 1 website, with perhaps a touch of understatement, after the Malaysian race. "We clearly have some potential in hand and improving reliability will allow us to get closer in the near future."
While the extent of Renault's struggles might be surprising, Red Bull's should not be.
Ever since they announced last year that their chief technical officer Adrian Newey would be stepping back from F1, Red Bull have been saying it would not affect their performance. But neither of Newey's previous teams has been as successful without him—why should Red Bull be any different?
In addition, within a year, Red Bull had to replace both drivers from the teams that won four straight world championships. Even with the deep talent well of the Red Bull Junior Team, that is a lot of experience to lose.
With the reemergence of Ferrari, Red Bull's path back to the top has only become more challenging. At this point, given the gaps that still exist between the Bulls and the top teams, it looks like a multi-year project.
Still, with the resources of Dietrich Mateschitz's empire behind them, there is no doubt that Red Bull will compete again—provided they decide to stick around.
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