MOTORSPORT: Redder faces at Red Bull Racing

The fundamental problems with Daniel Ricciardo's Formula One car go beyond the much-maligned Renault power unit, the most powerful figure in the Red Bull racing empire – other than the energy drink company's owner – has admitted.

"There are some things in the chassis that do not work optimally," said Dr Helmut Marko, the ex-F1 driver who is a countryman and the motorsport adviser to Red Bull tycoon, Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz.

"There is the need to wake up in England," added Marko in reference to Red Bull Racing's headquarters at Milton Keynes, about 90 km north of London.

While Renault's hybrid V6 unit is well down on the power of the Mercedes and Ferrari that have won the first two grands prix this season, there also was an obvious problem with the front brakes of Red Bull's RB11 cars at the second race in Malaysia on March 29.

Marko has alluded to an imminent change of brake supplier for the team that won both the constructors' and drivers' world titles four years in a row (2010-2013) and with which Australian Ricciardo won three GPs last year.

Red Bull's chassis, especially the aerodynamics, traditionally has been its strong point, but in the war of words between the team and its engine supplier this season Renault's F1 chief Cyril Abiteboul accused Red Bull's long-time technical director Adrian Newey of lying.

Abiteboul withdrew that slur in Malaysia, where Ricciardo and his new Russian teammate Daniil Kyvat said Renault's power unit was more "driveable" than it had been in Melbourne two weeks earlier.

However, Ricciardo has finished a lap down in both races so far this season – in sixth place in Australia and 10th at Malaysia's Sepang circuit.

At Sepang he crossed the finish line behind not only Kvyat but also the two rookies – 17-year-old Dutchman Max Verstappen and 20-year-old Spaniard Carlos Sainz Junior – in the similarly Renault-powered cars of Scuderia Toro Rosso, Red Bull's junior team.

Mercedes dominated the Australian race, with its drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg half a minute ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, while in Malaysia it was Vettel beating the Mercs because of better tyre wear and overall race strategy.

Renault has won 47 GPs this decade, almost as many as Mercedes and Ferrari combined, but the French manufacturer's "marriage" to Red Bull has appeared on the rocks in recent times, even if they are now making more conciliatory noises.

Red Bull has quietly had Mario Illien, the man behind the Mercedes V10 engines with which Finnish driver Mika Hakkinen won two world titles in McLaren cars in the late 1990s, working in the background as an engine consultant.

While Renault has acknowledged the need to lift its game, especially as it is now reputed to have as much as 100 horsepower less than the benchmark Mercedes power unit, it sees Red Bull as having tried to interfere too much in its efforts to improve.

Red Bull is still not satisfied with Renault's development, although Toro Rosso technical director James Key said the engine supplier had made "a massive step" between Australia and Malaysia.

"It's still not perfect, but Renault has recovered very effectively," Key said.

"We need that performance because Ferrari has made that step forward and Mercedes are strong."

The Toro Rosso cars upstaging the Red Bulls in Malaysia was a sure sign that there are problems with the RB11's chassis.

At the third race of the season in China this weekend tyre life will be another issue for the frustrated but diplomatic Ricciardo.

The 25-year-old, now in his fourth full season of F1, said tyres could be destroyed within seconds at the Shanghai circuit.

"I'd call it [the circuit layout] technical. Turns one, two and three are all very long and technical. I don't think there's any corner like it on the calendar. And it's very, very aggressive on the front tyres," Ricciardo said.

"It's pretty extreme, but I'd still prefer it to the scenario with a tyre that takes three laps to 'come in' [optimise]. The fact that it 'comes' in straight away is awesome.  

"In qualifying you drive the out-lap like your grandma, desperately trying to not kill it [the rubber] before the flying lap starts."

The Shanghai circuit also has the longest straight in F1 at 1.17km and on which drivers admit they can get distracted.

"You could drink a can of Red Bull driving down it," Ricciardo said, adding that the straight felt even worse when he was driving a Formula BMW car along it almost a decade ago.

"It's the sort of straight where I'd definitely have been reaching for a book if I'd had one," he said.

The 21-year-old grandson of Sir Jack Brabham got to drive one of Andretti Autosport's Honda-powered Dallara cars during filming of a commercial at Indianapolis Raceway Park, not the more famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway known as The Brickyard.

The outing came on the day that would have been his late triple F1 world champion grandfather's 89th birthday.

Sir Jack started the rear-engined revolution in Indy racing in the 1960s and his eldest son Geoff, Matthew's father, drove more than 100 Indy races and last competed in the Indianapolis 500 in 1993.

The third-generation Brabham set an Indy Lights lap record at the opening round of the American open-wheeler season at St Petersburg in Florida on the last weekend of March, driving for Michael Andretti's outfit.

Winner of two more junior open-wheeler titles in America, Brabham is still chasing sponsorship to complete a second full season of Indy Lights but also is looking at a limited IndyCar series campaign.

He said his outing at Indianapolis Raceway Park "just made me really want to race one even more".

Meanwhile, Australia's reigning IndyCar champion Will Power has said the new aero kits on the cars are likely to lead to less contact between drivers.

Power lost part of his front wing while trying to overtake Team Penske teammate and eventual winner Juan Pablo Montoya at St Petersburg.

"I definitely lost front-end grip when I knocked that off," said Power, who finished second there.

"You can probably still rub, but you will probably have less contact than with the previous car."

Ten makes were represented in the field of 26 cars.

Scotsman Gordon Shedden gave Honda its first win ahead of triple world touring car champion Andy Priaulx in a BMW.

Three-time BTCC champion Matt Neal later took victory in a reverse-grid race in another Honda ahead of an MG driven by Jack Goff.

Neal and Goff are equal at the top of the points table with 37, but the Honda driver is the leader by virtue of that victory.

Volkswagen driver Aaron Smith is third on 36 points, Priaulx has 34, Shedden 32 and reigning champion Colin Turkington in a Volkswagen is sixth on 30.

Brazilian Nelson Piquet Junior won the latest round of the open-wheeler series on a short version of California's Long Beach street circuit, where his father notched up his first Formula One victory 35 years before going on to win three world titles.

Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne and another Brazilian, Lucas Di Grassi, shared the podium with Piquet Junior at the weekend.

Piquet's victory was the first in the series for China Racing and the 25 points he gained moved him up to second in the championship on 74 points, just one behind Di Grassi, while Frenchman Nicolas Prost – son of the great Alain, winner of the previous round in Miami and previous series leader – is now third on 69.

Piquet was one of three drivers allowed to use a 5-second power boost as the result of a fan vote, but he said he did not take advantage of it because "the battery was overheating a little bit and I didn't want to have any chance of something going wrong".

Temperature management has been an issue for all teams and drivers in this first season with the identical French-made Spark-Renault SRT 01E cars.

The next round of the series is in Monaco on May 9 – two weeks before the F1 GP there.

Richard Childress Racing has appealed the penalties imposed on members of the crew of its Chevrolet driver Ryan Newman after independent checking of tyres following the March 22 race at California's Fontana Speedway.

Crew chief Luke Lambert was fined US$125,000, suspended for the next six Cup races and May's All-Star race at Charlotte, North Carolina, and put on probation for the rest of the year.

Tyre technician James Bender and engineer Philip Surgen were suspended for six races and also are on probation until the end of the year.

Newman and car owner Childress were docked 75 points each.

That has dropped Newman, runner-up to fellow Chevrolet driver Kevin Harvick in last year's Cup, from sixth to 26th in this season's standings.

A date has not been set yet for the appeal hearing.

NASCAR executive vice-president Steve O'Donnell said "any modification to race vehicle tyres is an unacceptable practice".

There has been speculation in American stock car racing for months that teams have been drilling minute holes in tyres or using bleeder valves to maintain constant pressures during races.

There were rumours of Stewart-Haas Racing doing it on Harvick's car as last season climaxed, but it was not proven.

Six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson said his Hendrick Motorsports team had not resorted to the practice although he is an advocate for bleeder valves.

"I've been saying for years that we need bleeder valves. We just do," Johnson said.

"I came from sprintcars where they're built into the wheel. You set them. They may not be advanced enough for what we need in a Cup car and Cup tyre, but it just makes sense."

But Roger Penske, who fields Fords for two top drivers Brad Keselowski and Joey Lagano, said: "We all want to be competitive and we are all working on the edge all the time, but I think there are a few areas which are definitely over the line."