(Image credit: Jake Archibald)
What they said
In a departure from the tradition of recent years, Red Bull have actually released their new F1 car well in advance of winter testing, and said that they did not to need to launch "aggressively late" this year.
"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," the team explained via their website. "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."
"As usual with a brand-new car, the programme was characterised by short runs with plenty of inspection and analysis time between, but the RB14 didn't supply any nasty surprises."
Hitting snags in testing has cost Red Bull dearly in previous years, so their fans will be hoping that getting some early mileage on the RB14 will only help the team pick up this year where they left off in 2017, and be able to challenge for race wins right from the first race.