http://planetf1.com/off-on-f1/6194280/Secret-Diary-Of-Newey-53-3-4
very intresting article, especialy the bits about the Renault engine. They have obviously been improving it, which may coincide with renaults sudden burst off speed, and redbulls speed at monaco and turkey, as on paper around the slow speed corners of monaco the mclaren should of had the edge.
They have not changed anything to do with the engine, engine design is frozen and they are not allowed to change anything, the reason why Mclaren are catching is that Redbull had to modify 4 areas of the car which were deemed to be outside the rules.
This thread: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/84119 may help they are trying to switch to Merc engines as they believe the Renault is around 30bhp down.
Thats not tottaly correct. The engine components and design are frozen, but oils and how the oils work, oil and air supply and how they mix etc can all be changed to improve the performance; this is where the merc and ferrari engine made the performance leaps a couple of years ago as all engines were roughly equal when starting out. The engine can also be changed on reliability grounds (which if you remember last year, there was alot of reliabilty problems with the engine). Renault also came out publicly last year stating that they were unaware that engine suppliers will still developing the engines in terms of oils etc which resulted in the renault unit standing still whilst others advanced.
With regards redbull modifying there car, yes they did have to, but the areas which they changed made very little if any difference. In fact mclaren have also had to change parts of their diffuser a couple of races ago. Its a continous cycle in F1 where other teams report to the FIA areas on other cars that they think may break the rules. The FIA investigate and advise the teams. We rarely hear about these goings on, and the redbull changes at monaco and at turkey, and the mclaren and merc diffuser changes were all mentioned in passing.
