Amidst Struggles, Can Red Bull Return to Prominence?
2010 saw the Red Bull Formula 1 team begin their four year reign as constructor champions with the young German Sebastian Vettel leading the charge from the drivers seat for the afore mentioned years of success where the team was the gold standard of Formula 1.
When the rule changes for 2014 were put into place however, Formula 1 would no longer see the purple and red coloured car piloted by Sebastian Vettel at the helm of the field. It was apparent at the season opener in Melbourne that a new face will lead Formula 1, the silver and blue Silver Arrows WO5 Hybrid of Mercedes would be the new force that all teams would strive, and fail, to surpass for three years of Formula 1, including the formerly dominate Red Bull F1 team.
It was apparent from the beginning that the Renault 1.6 litre power unit was far inferior to all others available on the grid. Despite the 2014 season being filled by Mercedes victory and the struggles for power in the Red Bull garage, they were the only team to knock Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg off of the top step of the podium for the entire season at the Grand Prix of Canada, Hungary, and Belgium with Daniel Ricciardo being the pilot for all three of those victories. The lack of success left teammate Sebastian Vettel to seek employment elsewhere on the grid and found a home in Scuderia Ferrari.
Daniil Kvyat would replace the seasoned veteran for Red Bull's worst season in many years. Ricciardo and Kvyat would fail to win any races and the drivers would finish 7th and 8th in the drivers standings with the team 4th in the constructors championship at 187 points. Over 500 points behind the leaders of Mercedes and 70 behind the third place Williams campaign. The lack of power was so apparent during the season that Red Bull threatened to leave the sport if they were not able to use a different engine supplier. The team would settle to use the same distributor, but would re-brand the engines to the watch company TagHeuer.
Last season saw a resurgence of Red Bull that brought the squad two victories and back to the penultimate position in the constructors championship by putting up 468 points, just short of 300 points improvement versus the previous season. The Tag Heuer branded Renault power unit saw improvement as the Endstone team has returned to Formula 1 competition. So could this be the blossoming of Red Bull success?
It is not hard to assume the new rules for 2017 will favor Red Bull in terms of the chassis by having much higher down force levels and more mechanical grip to go with it. What should, and is, a worry is that the last time teams were able to fully develop engines, Renault was the worst engine on the grid in terms of performance. However one hope is that with the token system removed from engine development combined with the experience and knowledge gained the past few seasons, Renault can produce a powerful power unit to compete with Mercedes.
In addition, Renault is now a factory team in Formula 1, so what gains they make on track reflects more well or poorly on the brand depending on the performance, possibly helping to drive the outfit to create a very good power unit.
In converse to that situation however, it is completely legal for Renault to give Red Bull a lower spec engine in retaliation to the team threatening to leave the sport because of the poor performance and re-branding their engines as TagHeuer instead of Renault. This would obviously increase tensions and reduce Red Bull's feedback to Renault and vice versa, only causing detriment to both parties.
In the correct situation though, the collaboration of the two highly funded teams could produce a very powerful power unit, and bring both Red Bull and Renault to the front of the field. Making it seem very possible that the pieces coulf be in place for a resurgence of Red Bull.
This season has more questions than ever before leading into it, and the success of Red Bull is a major question. Mercedes will be hard to beat of course, but i feel that if any team has a shot, it will be Red Bull. Obviousy we will not know how the performance of Red Bull will be until Australia, then again though, story lines like this is what make Motorsport so interesting.
Photo source; f1fanatic.co.uk
