MOTORSPORT: Style before substance in F1 launches

Most of the cars for the new Formula 1 season, now only a month away, have broken cover generating pretty images but little of substance.

The cars are overwhelmingly similar to the 2017 models, other than the compulsory addition of the 'halo' head protection for the drivers.

Ferrari's chief technical officer Mattia Binotto says the 'halo' has been "very intrusive on the design" of the Italian stable's latest creation, the SF71H.

"It is not a straightforward exercise. It affects the weight of the car, the centre of gravity, the air into the engine scoop, but also the flow to the rear wing," Binotto said.

The main challenger to top team Mercedes last year, but without a world title since 2008, Ferrari has stretched the wheelbase of its SF71H and been more aggressive in the design of sidepods and radiator ducts as it tries to improve its performance on higher-speed circuits.

Red Bull attempted to disguise the detail of its aerodynamic changes, unveiling its RB14 in a black, dark blue and white livery for Daniel Ricciardo's few laps for publicity filming.

While carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo pronounced "encouraging early signs" and "the rear feels pretty settled", he reportedly clipped a barrier at Britain's Silverstone circuit during a filming session this week (causing a little damage to the car).

Most interesting at the pre-season tests, which start on Monday I Barcelona (Spain), will be the comparison between the new McLaren, to be unveiled tonight (Friday, February 23), the Red Bull RB14 and the Renault works team's R.S.18. All of these cars use the same Renault V6 hybrid powerplant design.

Renault is now claiming 950 horsepower but, with cars now allowed just three engines per season before incurring penalties, the manufacturer team's technical chief Bob Bell says reliability will be even more important.

"That's a huge challenge, even more so than performance development," Bell said.

"All the issues that blighted us last year [costing Ricciardo fourth place in the championship at the final race] need to be eradicated."

The Honda unit that McLaren dropped after three miserable years is now in the STR13 of Red Bull's junior team, Toro Rosso. It seemingly had a trouble-free filming run with New Zealander Brendon Hartley behind the wheel at that team's first on-track exercise.

"The new girl ran super smooth," Hartley said.

Swiss-based but now Scandinavian-owned Sauber, wooden-spooner among the 10 teams in last year's constructors' championship, will run the latest Ferrari power unit under the deal that adorns its C37 model in Alfa Romeo branding.

Force India, a surprisingly strong performer the past couple of years thanks to its Mercedes power, won't show its new car until the eve of testing and there are suggestions of a change of ownership before the opening race in Melbourne on March 25.

Primary owner Vijay Mallya is fighting efforts to have him extradited from Britain to India to face money laundering charges, while his partner Subroto Roy Sahara has already been in jail for several years.

The Mercedes factory team has dominated the four seasons of the hybrid era, although last year's car was temperamental on certain tracks.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says that, with little change to the rules this season, his designers have tried to retain the best characteristics of last year's car (which he called a 'diva'), while trying to find more driveability in its new W09. Mercedes' driver line-up is unchanged -- four-times world champion Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas, entering his second season with Mercedes, and fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari will be under extreme pressure to perform at their maximum this season with Ricciardo, a five-times Grand Prix winner, coming out of contract at Red Bull.

While the titanium 'halo', with a strut directly ahead of the driver, has been a controversial addition to this year's cars (Wolff even saying he would like to cut it off with a chainsaw) Ricciardo is relaxed about it.

"I don't love the look of it, but I think it'll be fine. We'll have other things to talk about pretty quickly," he said.

Ricciardo's main concern has been that Red Bull be better prepared at the start of testing than it has been in recent years.

"The team's focus has been more on making sure the car is ready before we go to the test, so we can make sure we know the car is going to run and that we can tick a lot more boxes before we get out on track," he said.

"If that gives us a stronger pre-season and we can take that into the first four races [with Bahrain, China and Azerbaijan to follow Australia] and not feel like we're playing catch-up or chasing ourselves because we left things so late, then that's a move in the right direction."

Now 28, with 129 GPs under belt and precocious young talent Max Verstappen in the other RB14, it will be these early races that determine whether Ricciardo sticks with Red Bull in his quest to become world champion or is on the move in 2019.