Red Bull: It's preferable to finish the car early

On the occasion of the launch of the RB14, the team wrote: "New bodywork regulations always dominate the news cycle in the launch season – but 2018 has a bigger acreage of change than most years with the introduction of the Halo and the new exclusion zones on the rear of the car that effectively removes shark fins, monkey seats and T-wings. Some years it's difficult for the casual viewer to differentiate the new car from the old: that isn't going to be a problem this time around."

"That said, the technical regulations haven't changed hugely for 2018. Installing the Halo has been a challenge –
mostly in terms of building a chassis strong enough to accommodate it and pass a brutal homologation test – but the rest of the regs have been comparatively stable. That's the primary reason we're able to launch earlier than usual."

"The pattern of the last few years has been to launch 'aggressively late'. This has allowed the design department the maximum amount of time to add [goodies] to the car before the cut-off point at which the design is frozen and a launch car produced. It's been not uncommon to have the car finished, fired up for the first time and shipped to Spain for the start of testing all on the same day."

"It serves a purpose – but you wouldn't do it if you didn't have to, and this year we didn't have to. It's preferable to finish the car early and deal with any snags now, when the car is on a track a short drive from the factory, rather than using up one of our eight ultra-precious test days doing the same at the Circuit de Catalunya."

The team spent Monday at a soaked Silverstone where Daniel Ricciardo drove the RB14 with Pirelli wet tyres as part of their one of two allowed promotional filming days.