Red Bull RB14, 2018

Red Bull presents its new F1 car in special testing livery

2018 F1 season

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Red Bull have revealed their new car for the 2018 F1 season in a special testing livery.

The car, officially called the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer RB14, is powered by a Renault engine and hybrid system.

Daniel Ricciardo is shaking down the new chassis at Silverstone today.

The team will reveal its race livery when pre-season testing begins at the Circuit de Catalunya next week.

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Red Bull RB14, 2018
Red Bull RB14, 2018

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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77 comments on “Red Bull presents its new F1 car in special testing livery”

  1. In this colour scheme the halo almost looks like a GoT style crown. Not too bad. I like the testing colour schemes, more teams should do this. Can’t really comment on the car yet – which is the point, I guess.

  2. That’s one great looking car!

    1. The best looking of all the cars revealed thus far. I hope they don’t change this livery. Love the Aston Martin logo on the wing – wouldn’t like to see any yellow or red in the livery, especially when it has Aston Martin written on it. I only wish they had extended the colour scheme to the halo as well instead of leaving it just plain black.

  3. Oh, one thing I can comment: those sidepods are incredible. Taking Ferrari’s concept from last year to a different level.

    1. It’s the whole complex thing around the sidepods; the barge board (barge-wind-fanes); the sidepod-wing (wing-wing).

      1. Yeah, I was looking at the wings under the wing mirror, much larger than I’ve seen before. Flow conditioning or down force generating I wonder?

  4. Thats an extremely positive surprise by RBR,that livery is impressive!!!
    Unfortunately thats a test livery & it wont be run for the whole season…

    1. @miltosgreekfan Say’s who besides you ?.

      1. @noname Well, just me & the official Red Bull Racing team.
        And 4-5 guys above

        1. And the article…

          1. @Paat Yeah, Keith as well ………

        2. @miltosgreekfan @noname

          I say it as well.

          Who remembers the beautiful camo scheme which quickly turned into the same old red bull livery.

  5. It looks great with this livery, so I wouldn’t mind if it were kept, but probably it won’t.

    1. Has there ever been a team that used a pre season testing livery (specifically said by the team), who then decided to use it for the whole season? I don’t think so.

    2. I do agree though, the livery looks great and they should keep it. Makes it look more like an Aston Martin, rather than a colourful Renault.

  6. Looks incredible!
    Those side pods are more like side slots! They’re tiny!

  7. The new RBR is the first car to have(or us to see) the 360° camera that the new cars are obliged to have(based on the regulations for 2018).
    Thankfully the camera doesnt take that much of the space & it doesnt affect the shape of the chassis

  8. How are they gonna fit Verstappen’s 33 on the side where Ricciardo’s 3 barely fits? Still think they should’ve kept shark fins… Sigh…

    Anyway, I know it’s just a testing livery, but that livery looks fantastic. The side pods are intriguing too

    1. How are they gonna fit Verstappen’s 33 on the side

      Spread it over both sides (with small TPO below) ;)
      @hugh11

    2. They’ve made him change to number 4 so it fits on the car.

    3. @hugh11 Just like last year, I guess: two narrower, each other partly overlapping 3’s.

  9. Wow, this is the first new car (unlike Haas and Williams) that is aerodynamically radically different than last year’s car. Look at those sidepods! I hope this is a typical Newey-genius-moment.

  10. Wow, that’s an incredible livery for testing. Those sidepods are miniscule, it’ll be fascinating to see how they have managed to achieve that.

    Also, Aston Martin Red Bull Tag Heuer RRB14 just trips off the tongue doesn’t it…

    1. Don’t you mean Aston Martin Red Bull Racing Tag Heuer RB14? 😂
      You’re right though, beautifully packaged sidepods.

    2. Aston Martin Red Bull Tag Heuer RRB14 just trips off the tongue

      ‘tripping’ over the final bit ;)

      1. Indeed! So easy to “say” that I can’t even type it correctly.

        Looking forward to the equally well named Mercedes AMG F1 W09 EQ Power+…

  11. I agree with you all, wow what a car!!! incredible stuff from what you can see. This car put the Formule E cars in a whole different perspective , i would say plastic perspective. This RB 14 looks like a monster, if the design and look of it can be match with speed then we got here a winner.

  12. The testing camo-bull livery, the neat halo…everything is quite striking about this car but NOTICE THE DAM AEROPLANE WINGS ON THE SIDE PODS.

  13. What an amazing livery, it would be great if they kept it for the whole year!

  14. Love this livery from head to toe, but the only thing i would change is the colour of the numbers from white to yellow so it’ll be easier to notify the auidence/crowd. Otherwise, Red Bull have out done themselves this year that’s for sure.

  15. Calculated move. You know if Daniel had already signed they would have for sure given shake down duties to Max.

    1. that’s paranoia

      1. Tinfoil hats at the ready…

  16. Livery is cool, but you can see why it will only be used in testing, it looks like something that STR would use.
    They will definitely try to add some yellows and red once the season starts.

    It also makes a really good job at hiding the car, I for once can see bleep. It might come from my astigmatism, and how my brain reacts to things, I feel my eyes trying to focus the graphics every-time I look at it, but of course they are not out of focus. Is this the mental games that teams always talk about? Wicked

  17. That livery is stunning. Please just make slight modifications Redbull.
    The halo is also kinda hidden and not too obvious which is great. Hide that halo as much as possible.

  18. It looks great. A serious question, is the Halo a standardised piece of kit? ie: is it provided to the teams, or does it have to be built to a certain specification?

    It’s probably just because it’s new and I’m not adjusted to it yet, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on all these launches so far. They look like the steps used to get in and out of swimming pools! I wonder if it would look better and more in keeping with the designs if it carried on down the chassis a little more and smoothed in towards the nose (though perhaps that would affect driver vision a little more?).

    1. It’s standard and build for fish by a selected firm.

  19. Those upper front wishbones…I wonder what’s the advantage of that? They look all bent and twisted.

    1. Merc and STR had those last year. Mainly aero advantage, better airflow, supposedly. New development, narrower wheels pre-2017 made this configuration impossible.

    2. Did you see that they connect almost a centimeter above the hull?

      https://www.racefans.net/2018/02/19/red-bull-presents-new-f1-car-2018/rb14-suspension/

      There are a lot of details telling how they plan to manage airflow from the front backwards.

      Also, that kinda looks like Inter Milan’s shirt.

  20. Absolutely beautiful.

  21. Fia… sigh autocorrect even finds fia fishy

  22. Can anyone explain this official Red Bull statement?

    The RB14 is currently wearing a special edition livery. We’re keeping our race-ready paint job under wraps for the time being and will unveil it at the Circuit de Catalunya next week. The unfamiliar shapes under the paint, however, are here to stay.

    Are the shapes refer to the body/aero module or it refers to digital effect paint?

    1. Ok. I’m gonna answers my own question. Looks like the digital camo will stay. Just like Aston Martin car that Ricciardo driving.

    2. I’m assuming it means that while we will get another paint job, the actual aerodynamic surfaces are not obfuscated in any way (so no fake side pods etc)

    3. Ok, I was right – that looked like a camo paint job to disguise the car’s shape. You can barely see the car’s actual design.

      Thanks for the info – god, that was such a scary sight:-)

  23. That looks like 2016 sidepods on a 2017 floor!

  24. The wings on the sidepods combined with those vertical upstand elements coming off the floor in the bargeboard area… so cool!

  25. That car looks as though it has had countless hours of CFD CPU time

  26. It’s pretty unusual for any team (especially RBR) to provide that much detail in their launch photos.

    Is it possible there’s some smoke & mirrors going on and half those intricate looking bits will be replaced, or are they that confident that they can’t be copied?

    1. If the side “wings” incorporate the impact structure, it’ll be very difficult for another team to replicate them and crash test them in-season.

  27. It seems perhaps I’m in the minority but I really dislike the livery. It’s very dull, colour-wise. It lacks the bright colours that their normal livery has. Obviously this is deliberate for testing, so I’m quite pleased it’s not their race livery

  28. I’m interested in that rear wheel/suspension “strut” that seems to connect to nowhere. A rather curious setup?

  29. Certainly no disappointment compared to last year. They’ve developed their concepts quite extensively over the year! Looks like a real challenger. Can’t wait to see the technical analysis :D

  30. Ugly, very ugly …

    1. Yeah, I agree – not sure how Red Bull managed to go from one of the best designs to one of the worst car (not race car) designs of all time. Color is so important and this is a camo design to accentuate their sponsors. As a designer you know you have failed when the halo has no effect on the car’s aesthetics whatsoever. Not to mention that the clean visible lines of the tires are actually the highlight of the car’s design:-)

      1. It’s a testing livery…

  31. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer RB14

    Say that three times fast

  32. That’s a disaster of a livery – it reminds of the camouflage they use on new models to disguise the shape of the car.

    Hardly worthy of an Aston Martin. Maybe it’ll grow on me but looking at the side view, all I see are Red Bull, Esso, Tag Heuer, Aston Martin, and Mobil due to the Black and White super contrast. The car’s invisible.

    It’s a billboard, not a race car…

    1. The car’s invisible.

      That was kind of the point.

      1. I didn’t know that they were trying to camouflage the car’s components from the opposition until I read one of the comments above mine. Even the most beautiful car simply looks awful with digital camo so that explains my reaction.

    2. @freelittlebirds Not sure if you realise but that is precisely the point – it’s meant to reflect the kind of camo paintjob they put onto test versions of pre-poduction prototype cars. Ironically in Milton Keynes (where RBR are based) you used to frequently see prototype Aston Martins being driven around in camo paint.

      1. Thanks! Actually one thing that looks super cool on the car is the Aston Martin Logo on the rear wing , especially the back of the wing which is the view we’ll see from behind the car.

        That looks absolutely awesome! There’s a picture of it in another article. Aston Martin’s logo looks like a pair of wings and is a match made in heaven on the rear wing of the Red Bull, not to mention how fitting it is for Red Bull and their slogan.

    3. It’s a beautiful car.

  33. Given their late adoption of the Renault PU I’m not expecting McLaren to be anywhere near the RB in terms of sidepods/flow.

  34. Great livery and incredible sidepod area! Look at the space! Huge! Hope they set the cooling system well.

  35. Adrian strikes back …

    Deng .. deng .. deng .. deng

    From Galaxy far far away … bla bla bla

    Wowww what a detail everything just curve and awesome ..

    RBR Junior Engineer: “Oowwwh now I’m understand Adrian say’s about his concept we should do last year right?”

  36. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    19th February 2018, 16:29

    If they had brains they would use that for the season. So cool.

  37. I bet that front wing flexes like Rolf Harris’s wobble board!

  38. Red Bull again teasing a testing livery that’s probably better than their actual livery will be. The car looks awesome and aggressive. Probably the best looking modern car since the Mercedes W05. The halo is barely a factor and I think we’ll all be used to it come seasons end.

    After all the fawning the latest Formula E design got which I thought looked contrived, this is how truly beautiful engineering looks when it’s an honest, truthful pursuit of performance and not all show.

  39. Love the livery, shame it’s not staying, look forward to the technical analysis of the car.

  40. Awful livery painted on what appears to be last seasons car with fake bargeboard bits. I dont get it. Such a mess

    1. You’ve missed literally every point of this car launch.

  41. I think it looks cool .
    I really liked the Black and White one they did before

  42. califormula1fan
    19th February 2018, 19:59

    Despite RBR’s laudable efforts, I’m so very disappointed in the halo. It is big, ugly, distracting, and effectively ends the fundamental era/idea of open cockpit racing. I had harbored high hopes that it could be implemented in some way to preserve the essence of the open wheel/open cockpit design that has defined Formula 1 for over seventy years: alas, it is not to be.

  43. Car looks great, very much need to look closer for changes to last years car. I like teams doing testing livery’s. I remember Mclaren did it back in 2005 (i think) to all orange. It was a beauty.

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