Tech analysis: Red Bull RB10

The much-anticipated Red Bull RB10 was given the briefest of unveilings at Jerez on Tuesday morning and, at first sight, the car follows surprisingly sleek but conventional lines with only the alternative nose concept catching the eye.

But all of this belies the extent of the changes Adrian Newey has made under the skin with the RB10.

Much of the talk surrounding the car was its nose design, which Newey describes as a "keel" nose. The mandatory low tip is formed by a pod fitted below a conventional upper nose. The pod is streamlined and truncated under the nose.

This keel has the potential to offer aero benefits over an anteater nose, especially in yaw, where the keel presents less side surface to the airflow.

But the keel will offer far less crash resistance, so the bulk of the structure to meet the impact test will be in the upper nose, which is a weight and centre-of-gravity height issue.

A means to reduce the blockage of the keel is the addition of the 'driver cooling' slot into its front face. This inlet forms an unusual 'U' shape and will duct the high-pressure air built up on the nose's leading edge to inside the cockpit.

A further feature of the nose is the carry-over of the 'S' duct, passing inside the nosecone. It aids the airflow under and over the chassis by scooping air from under the nosecone and feeding it back out over the top of the chassis.

A departure from other teams is the line of the top of the chassis at the front of the car. While the front bulkhead position is fixed, the Red Bull chassis rises up to the maximum height and then slopes downwards to the minimum height at the cockpit. This creates a wave shape in side profile over the top of the nose.

Red Bull has kept its sidepods slim and deeply undercut at the front. The air passing under the raised chassis is caught by the under-cut and sends the high-pressure flow to the diffuser to aid rear downforce. No doubt in time far more fins and vanes will appear around the fronts of the sidepods.

Inside the engine cover, Newey has had to discard his favoured ERS concept of having the battery around the gearbox. The 2014 regulations dictate it must be under the fuel tank, so the back of the monocoque will not be as short as he would like.

But Newey alluded to moving the ERS control units away from under the fuel tank and into the area under the radiator ducts, and this should help shorten the back of the monocoque.

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Being Renault's favoured team will have helped the development of the engine and ERS installation. This close link means that Red Bull's preferences for the engine installation will be listened to more readily.

As Newey pushes powertrain packaging very hard, it's a certainty that the detail of the engine and ERS plumbing will be tucked well out of the way and prove to be a difficult task to keep cool.

With far greater torque and a longer mileage requirement, gearbox development has also been a challenge. Red Bull has its own gearbox casing, different to that used by Toro Rosso, which develops its own case around the Red Bull internals.

Newey acknowledged that the team will have lost more performance through the ban of blown diffusers than others, so the RB10 will run a lower rear rideheight and therefore less rake this year.

Red Bull made sure its rear end secrets were hidden © LAT

But as development progresses on the details around the floor near the rear tyres, it's expected that the cars will be set up with steeper rake angles again.

At the rear of the car, details were kept closely guarded. The rear wing is at least partly supported by a pylon coming up and out of the engine cover.

But this structure does not look strong enough to support all of the downforce from the rear wing and it's likely that the wing's endplates will be partly supported by the diffuser.

Because of the rules the exhaust projects out of the back of the engine cover and appears to be quite high and exposed. This suggests that the team's knowledge of blown aero will be exploited with a winglet around the exhaust's tailpipe.

With Newey confirming that development to the nose, wings and floor will happen before Melbourne, the hidden complexity in the RB10 may already be worrying its rivals.

But Red Bull has admitted reliability is the first priority and already the first run was delayed by a problem discovered on the car overnight.

With this emphasis on finishing races, it's unlikely that the car will be fully dressed with all its aerodynamic tricks until the season reaches Europe.