Technical analysis of the Renault RS19: A new step forward

Renault RS19 is the F1 2019 that has played present today. Renault's new car looks like a step forward, but we'll have to wait for what they've done with the engine. So far we have only heard the engines of the motorists in the promotional videos that usually do at this stage of the season for fans to hear the sound, but from there little can know the power they will have and will have to wait for the last days of the tests of preseason in the circuit of Montmeló, in the north-east of Spain...

Honda and Renault, Renault and Red Bull have been protagonists of a soap opera of accusations and ads that looked like smoke bombs more than realities about their engines. In a few days we will see who lied and who has told the truth, although I get the feeling that it is a cluster of alleged falsehoods (pure marketing) on both sides and that is neither so much nor so little.

Red Bull had a divorce announced, the declassifications between both and the tension was evident, and with Honda in Toro Rosso, everything was a nice new fondness with the Japanese engine. Renault activated the alarms to defend itself and began to announce to Bombo and saucer the great advances they were making and how wonderful it will be their engine for this new season. A battle between Honda and Renault's announcements about their progress happened. How much of that is true? Will Red Bull the same patience as McLaren if the Honda engine doesn't work? I insist, these are very interesting things for the fight not to be the worst engine of the grill.

Sure both engines, Honda and Renault, have advanced in power and reliability, I have no doubt, and have probably implemented a Q Mode to give more power in the classification as they did last year but contributed little. But more than the battle between the two, what would be very interesting is to see how much progress with respect to Ferrari and Mercedes, and it would be good that Ferrari and Mercedes had already reached a roof and that Honda and Renault are close and are very equal this year.

Watch out for the reliability issues, as Renault has announced that not only the car is new to 99%, but the engine this year is completely new. If that is true, beware of architectural changes if there have been, because this is directly against the reliability of being untested new parts on track, only in the dyno or test bench of the respective factories. We saw what happened to Honda every time I changed the engine with McLaren, another year thrown in the garbage and start from scratch with everything... Although, as always, you have to take the statements carefully, and more in F1 where today they say one thing and tomorrow the opposite.

The reason for it to be new is that the SPEC C presented last year was a bit of a failure, although it was announced as something very good and a step forward very valuable part. But good to first, the same that said that, now say they have changed everything because SPEC C had structural limitations of the engine did not allow them to extract more performance. The main goal is to get more ICE performance, as the ERS are quite squeezed as they say.

Little to say more of the front wing of this car that has not already said in the previous analyses. It adapts to the new regulations, evidently, and we see that the endplates are simple, only a vertical plate of carbon fiber with an edge and nothing else, without more profiles or channels like last year. In addition, the wing you know that grows in width to occupy all the width of the car and all the deflector or vortex generators of the ends of the aileron, which cleared the air that it impacted on the front tyre and generated a series of air flows with high energy to seal the flat bottom, now disappear.

In this case, the main plane is quite straight (up slightly on the sides), like the Haas and the Williams, and nothing to do with the curve we saw in the Toro Rosso and none of those baffles under the spoiler of the STR14 that should be illegal in principle. What is very interesting is that unlike of other front flaps of the already seen, that the highest area is the most external or close to the extremes, in the case of RS19 the highest area is the closest to the center (with these five elements) and they go down making that curve as we approach the endplates.