Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey has said that this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix is about damage limitation for the defending world champions, given that the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps will exploit many of the weaknesses on the RB10 car.
The biggest issue for Red Bull at Spa are the long straights and high-speed corners, which require a good top speed. All of the teams that use Renault engines have been suffering from a lack of power in 2014, and this was particularly clear during practice yesterday.
The Mercedes power unit is by far the best on the grid, with seven cars powered by the German marque finishing in the top ten in each session. Predictably, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg locked out the top two positions in both sessions for the works team.
For Newey, this race is about Red Bull doing as well as it can in light of the problems with the engine, and he believes that the team’s next opportunity to win a race will come at Singapore in one month’s time.
“Certainly unless weather plays a part in the race and we manage to get that right or unless we are plain lucky, then given a sort of normal dry race, it seems very unlikely that we will be battling for the win,” Newey said.
“At that point, it becomes damage limitation.
“Possibly Singapore we have a chance. I think it goes without saying that the circuits that have the shorter straights are the ones that suit us best.”
Red Bull has not carried over its championship-winning form from 2013 into this year, with Daniel Ricciardo’s two victories coming in races where Mercedes was not at the peak of its powers. Nevertheless, the team looks set to finish second in the constructors’, relying that it can fend off Williams and Ferrari behind.
Newey also spoke about his job change at Red Bull, with the aerodynamicist set to take up more of a mentor-style role at the team for 2015 so he can focus on other projects outside of F1.
“At the moment I’m still full-time at Red Bull Racing and will be certainly over the coming months as we finalize the general layout of the car,” he said. “It won’t be until Christmas that I start to really get into new roles.”