Red Bull RB10: First pictures

2014 F1 cars

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Red Bull has presented its latest car, the RB10, at the Jerez circuit in Spain ahead of the start of pre-season testing.

The team’s 10th Formula 1 car has a lot to live up to – its four predecessors took the team to the constructors’ championship every year, and Sebastian Vettel to the drivers’ title every time. Vettel ended last season with a record-equalling nine consecutive grand prix victories.

For 2014, F1 has introduced radically different technical regulations and an entirely new generation of engine. Red Bull will use Renault’s V6 hybrid turbo power units.

The car was revealed by Vettel and his new team mate, Daniel Ricciardo, who joins the team from Red Bull’s junior outfit Toro Rosso. He spent the last two years at the team after making his F1 debut with HRT in 2011.

Pictures: Red Bull RB10 launch

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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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78 comments on “Red Bull RB10: First pictures”

  1. Hm, looks more interesting, than Mercedes, especially the black nose tip.

    1. I think this looks great. Unlike the Ferrari and the Merc, there is no obvious ‘curvy dip’ in the nose section. In the RB10 it seems to blend in rather more smoothly all the way.

      1. @loup-garou same. It looks very very nice.

      2. I like it overall, but I’m going to have to get used to the “pelican bill” front end. But hell, I’m going to have to get used to ALL of these cars LOL

        Although I must admit, with the warnings we had about ugly cars…they are no worse than the duckbills we got the last two years….just different.

      3. I must say it’s the best-looking so far!

        1. +1 this is what a 2014 spec car should look like, that nose is much better than the vacuum cleaner, the penis’s, or the women’s anotomy of the lotus

  2. This is awesome – so exciting getting multiple car launches in a day!

    Definitely my favourite part of the F1 year! :D

  3. Colour me underwhelmed – it looks quite lazy. Maybe it’s just a byproduct of the distance between camera and car, but it just looks like an RB9 with a 2014 nose.

    1. More than anything its the livery that I can’t stand. It’s always been aweful. It’s far too crowded. I think Red Bull could do with a major overhaul of its car livery style. With Webber leaving it could have been a good time to make another change. I dunno, I just hate all the lines and writing everywhere.

  4. Let’s see if Vettel gives this one a woman’s name..

    1. I’m tipping he will, he’ll probably call this lovely lady “Bubba”

      1. Nosey Nora?

        1. Gerta Goatee

    2. Horny Helga!

    3. Angela Merkel

      1. +1 A HUGE +1 LMAO!!!

    4. Lily Savage?

    5. Three-legged Désirée

    6. Shemale

      1. Thailand Therese

    7. He’ll call it Roxane, to pay homage to Cyrano de Bergerac.

      1. I give you a fist bump for that one! I like it.

  5. The nose tip looks counterintuitive being so wide with a large frontal area. Reminds me of the bulbous extension at the front of large cargo ships that saves a lot of fuel. So maybe Newey didn’t take inspiration from America’s Cup but from much larger ships.

  6. I like what I’m seeing, however the eternal argument that a beautiful car is a fast one will inevitably arise. The aesthetics are there and not long until we find out if the speed backs it up!

    1. Newey surprised me this time, he came up with something that looks altogether elegant!

      1. Have you actually seen it from the front? It’s the ugliest nose yet.

        1. The nose is ugly only as far as the colour scheme makes it look so. Otherwise, the shape is perfectly streamlined.

        2. Have you seen the Caterham nose? :)

          1. @tmekt I guess not hehe!

        3. I disagree, I think (because of the stumpiness and the black paint) it is one of the least protruding and hence one of the least offensive!

  7. Same as Torro Rosso

    1. The nose tip most definitely is different compared to the STR9.

      1. My Mistake

    2. This comment, as well as your comment on the Mercedes, saying it’s the same as the Ferrari makes me think you should seriously consider an appointment at the eye-specalist.
      Or you’re commenting without even looking at the pictures…

    3. You are right; both feature a red bull on the engine cover. @ean

      1. Oh, cleverly spotted!

  8. Keith you need at least 300mm of zoom :)

  9. Is it me or does Ricciardo look like a plastic action man figure?

    Looking at the Red Bull site the nose job looks pretty good

    1. Spot on! Ricciardo has such an awkward posture in those pictures, even when taking into account that he was adjusting his posture when the pictures were taken.

  10. The bull gets a snake head!
    The nose is rather confusing. Not sure if it is painting gimmick or the nose itself is structured in such a manner.

  11. Where will the mandatory cameras go?

  12. Is this nose legal? seems like the surface area of the tip of the nose is tiny.

    1. The surface area is measured slightly behind the frontmost tip – I think it was 50 mm behind, so it looks to be OK.

  13. Engineers up and down the paddock will be breathing a sigh of relief that the RB10 is pretty much following the same design principles as everyone else’s. They can rest assured they probably got it right…

    1. @mazdachris I’m not sure I agree. The nose tip seems quite different from other cars: it is vertical and not sloping like the other anteater designs.

      1. @mike-dee
        The concept is basically the same though. It’s just there to fulfill the mandatory nose regs, while keeping its aero profile to a minimum. Unless they’re using it to generate vortices, or there’s something more complex going on below the front of the chassis, I think there’s nothing to suggest that RBR’s design is a fundamentally different approach to that taken by the others (Except Ferrari and Mercedes)

      2. @mike-dee agree, it looks rather unique. It reminds me of a bulbous bow used on ships.

  14. The Blade Runner (@)
    28th January 2014, 8:49

    Not bad at all looks wise. I wonder how Ferrari and Mercedes feel now they know that Newey has gone down the “proboscis” route.

  15. So far i like this design the best. Not so much of a penis nose, more like a wedge. Plus the livery distracts from it.

  16. Not another one. At least they tried to conceal it. Lovely sleek design apart from that.
    Very little hope left now, but it’s resting on Marussia. I think we can count the Caterham out, after what its boss said about it!

  17. So the solutions so far:-
    Lotus = Tusk nose. As it seems to be unique, it will either be a “Brawn” or a “Lotus under sidepod exhaust”
    Ferrari and Mercedes= Non “Bulbous Bow/ Finger” with “fancy” camera mounting. The merc interpretation looks more coherent and visually pleasing but thats no reason to think it will be faster than the FIAT. The Merc rear looks super compact.
    Others so far including Red Bull = variations on the “Bulbous Bow/ Finger”, with standard camers mountings from those i have seen so far.
    Nice to see such wide differences of approach, BUT……..who’s right??

    1. In my opinion it does look like Ferrari and Mercedes have gone down the wrong route. They have spent years trying to raise their noses to get better airflow under the car and then Ferrari and Mercedes block off a significant amount of airflow. Unless they have some other secret at the rear end then it looks like they have made a mistake. This is more apparent when you consider that the Ferrari looks almost identical to a Mclaren Concept picture which was released a while ago. Mclaren obviously thought of this approach and then decided against it, couple that with Adrian Newey doing much the same as Mclaren and Lotus clearly showing that underside airflow is massively important to them too, it looks like the ugly solution could be the correct one. (Although personally I think the Ferrari looks like the ugliest of the lot which is odd when Merc can do such a nice design using the same concept).

      1. I for one would not be so sure about that as there are many ways to gain an advantage (fuel consumption, different rear airflow, less downforce, reliability,..).
        I would not be surprised if an advantage were to unfold with the way Ferrari and Mercedes did interpret the rules and more generally for exotic designs.
        As for the ugliest car, my vote definitely goes to Caterham (keeping its crown) which seems to develop some skills in making a terrible design :)

      2. I for one would not be so sure about that as there are many ways to gain an advantage (fuel consumption, different rear airflow, less downforce, reliability,..).
        I would not be surprised if an advantage were to unfold with the way Ferrari and Mercedes did interpret the rules and more generally for bizarre designs.
        As for the ugliest car, my vote definitely goes to Caterham (keeping its crown) which seems to develop some skills in making a terrible design :)

      3. That picture you might have seen was not from McLAren @lee1. It was a photoshop from someone who tried to predict different nose shapes that could be legal, made on a McLaren but it could have been any car. And as that looked almost exactly like what Ferrari did I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have a bit of inside info to go by.

        On a different note, the Mercedes does look like Ferrari, and does have some similarities (Camera mount idea), but the nose itself is likely different, in a sense its going on the same idea as the Lotus nose.

  18. Looks fast, as usual. At least they attempted to hide the front protrusion.

    1. Like FI :)

  19. It looks great, and so does the Mercedes, certainly the best 2 looking cars IMO. Ferrari also looks pretty good as well but nose not a asthetic as these two…………… lets just get them on the track!!

    1. I’m on the same page as you regarding the 3 cars you’ve mentioned.

  20. I’m OK with the nose. Its more bulbous nosetip may well have some fuel-saving intent and its vertical front may just be able to split the incoming airflow more efficiently (but I’m no aerodynamicist). Moreover, I think it is one of the more elegant solutions to date.
    But what does intrigue me is the back of the car as seen in the three-quarter front shot: is it me or is there some tube-like bodywork at the bottom that suggests a channel through which something (other than exhaust gasses of course) is blowing over the floor? Has Newey found some other airflow to use down there?

  21. there seems to be a lot of missing details on the RB10… Cameras/monkey seat wing etc… The back end is tiny, (so is the W05 very tight packaging on both) I wouldn’t be surprised if the track going RB10 is quite different to this…

    1. Also there seems to be another iteration of the letterbox slot ( visible just above the Total decal on the front corner shot)

  22. In a tribute to Vettel Red Bull have incorporated is famous finger into the car design!

  23. At first glance it looks quite conservative by Newey’s standards – though there’s something going on under that nose – in the head-on shot the area’s greyed out.

  24. Based on all the pictures so far, my order (opinion) of beauty is as follows.
    Mercedes is the best looking with Ferrari just behind, after that, I think Mclaren have done a good job with the bulbous nose concept. The Force India and the Red Bull have done well trying to hide/ minimize the protrusion. I am withholding judgement on the Lotus until I see more of it. But I do think Lotus have done a great job of interpreting/ pushing the rules vs most of the others. All the other cars not mentioned are basically ugly. I really hope the Ferrari and Mercedes design ends up being fast. That way, most everyone will improve the looks of their cars as the season progresses. I don’t get why the FIA can not write the regs to prevent this kind of crappy looking noses. I mean they had YEARS to know this was coming right?? Oh well, I am still totally siked that the season is under way!

  25. OK, I’m dubbing this one “The Redbull Pelican”. From the front, it looks like a pelican’s bill full of fish LOL

  26. What if the tip were tip to break off during the race and somehow improve performance? would it be dq’d for failing to comply to rules? Whats if ‘its been designed to break off easily and classified as crash structure, crumple zone area?

  27. Has anyone else noticed that the red bull is the only car without camera mounts on it?

  28. I just read that Newey said he was not fan of the low nose profiles. He said it could be fare more dangerous if a driver had to dive under the rear of another… Quite the worst scenario I agree with him!

    1. … In the meantime, the cars have had low nose profiles for decades …

      1. nose, but not chassis.

  29. @mads
    defiantly different, i knew rb10 would be different to the str9

    i do like the look

  30. I think by keeping the bulbous part forward of the wing mounts, there is less aero detriment. also, the 3/4 front view shows good flow thru the nose in the turns, so should perform good. Whereas the Ferrari must loss a lot in the turns. I think the bulbous nose could help by dumping the down force on the straights by stalling the floor, but allowing clean air around the sides in the turns.

  31. Where are the cameras??? I think they forgot to attach them

  32. Everybody is taking about the nose. However nobody noticed the the weird attachment under the rear wing.

    I am pretty sure it is some sort of DDRS system that stalls the rear wing at a certain speed. It looks like a thick pipe coming from underneath the engine cover.

    There is definitely something to it.

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