"Red Bull might not make it out of Q1 in Melbourne"

"Red Bull might not make it out of Q1 in Melbourne" 

(Jay Penrith/Flickr)

there's a quote not many ever expected to hear after the domination of the past 4 seasons.  Yet those are words out of Sky Sports technical analyst Ted Kravitz's mouth after the first day of the final pre season test session.

Red Bull turned just 32 laps then had to stop with busted headers.  Other Renault powered teams fared no better,  Lotus had to end early after 31 laps and Caterham, they are so slow that Kamui Kobayashi said they'd be better off taking a GP2 car to Melbourne.

It's hard to believe Renault would have so completely blown their engine development so badly all on their own  yet Red Bull have certainly thrown the French under the bus despite being responsible for installation and accessories of course, but also crucial bits like the battery pack.  
So far Renault is taking it on the chin,  they cannot lose Red Bull so they can't criticize,.  It's not helping that all Renault teams are underperforming but we're guessing that's partly because the engine is studied with Red Bull's needs in mind...  except Red Bull did not design the car they had in mind?

Whatever the cause it looks unlikely RBR and Renault will solve all their problems by the start of the season and perhaps the idea that the first, "away" portion of the championship will be lost played in Christian Horner's mind when he changed his tune about double points for the last three races.