The 2014 season wasn’t as strong as the previous four years for Red Bull Racing but they still managed to grab the runners up spot in the Constructors’ Championship, in what was a very competitive pack behind Mercedes’ W05.
2014 was a dream first season at the front of the field for Daniel Ricciardo, as he broke into the list of established front runners and surprised many by consistently outracing his quadruple world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel. Ricciardo was the only man to beat Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to the flag last season at the Canadian, Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix; he also managed five more podium appearances throughout the year. These results propelled him to a well-deserved third in the Drivers’ Championship.
The Aussie’s 2015 team-mate, Daniil Kvyat, also had an impressive season in his debut year with Torro Rosso. The Russian driver became the youngest point scorer in the history of the sport at his first race in Melbourne when he finished ninth. Kvyat went on to score points in four more races and pleased his home crowd at the Sochi Autodrom when he came fifth in qualifying—although he was unable to build on it in the race, it showed he has impressive pace. Daniil finished the season in fifteenth place with eight points.
Red Bull 2015 Season Preview
Red Bull fans expect the team to be in good shape from the off for the season ahead, with two young, quick drivers, both of whom produced plenty of strong results last year. However, the results from the first test got everyone thinking it might not be as straight forward for the Milton Keynes based outfit as was hoped.
Jerez showed the team were behind in terms of both speed and reliability; the pair completed just 735km of driving while Mercedes managed a massive 2,284km. Red Bull’s fastest lap was set by Ricciardo—1:23.338—a full two and a half seconds slower than Kimi Raikkonen’s 1:20.841. The testing at least did not herald a positive start to the 2015 campaign.
The tests at Catalunya proved to be the real start to the team’s season and the turnaround they needed. Out of 22 drivers Ricciardo was a very respectable fourth just half a second shy of the fastest time; Kvyat was tenth. Overall at this test the RB11 completed 1,945km, second only to Mercedes on 2,076km.
This is a step in the right direction and reinforces the theory that it will be a very close fight for the second place spot in the Constructors’ this year. As always, only time will tell and we will only find out how fast everyone really is once the cars get on track in Melbourne.
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