• Red Bull

Red Bull launches 2014 title defender

Red Bull has taken the wraps of the RB10 car, its 2014 challenger it hopes will contend for a fourth consecutive drivers' and constructors' championship.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel and new partner Daniel Ricciardo pulled the covers off in the Jerez pitlane ahead of the first morning of pre-season testing. Vettel has won four championships in a row and in 2014 will look to emulate the feat of fellow countryman Michael Schumacher in winning five straight titles.

"It's obviously a big change for all the teams, including ourselves," Vettel said. "In past years we always knew what to expect, which is very different this year. Therefore, it's very difficult to have any sort of expectations.

"The most important thing once we get going is to understand the car and understand what it needs and build on to that. At the moment expectations are fairly low, but once you realise you have a good car hopefully you race in the same area that we did for the last four years."

The RB10 features a slightly neater take on the 'anteater' style noses on most cars this year. Technical director Adrian Newey is not a fan of the regulation, describing the noses as "an awful shame".

"It's supposedly been done on the grounds of safety," Newey said. "It's meant to reduce the chance of a car being launched if one car hits another in the manner, for example, when Mark Webber went up the back of [Heikki] Kovalainen a few years ago. Whether it really makes a difference or not is a much more moot point, but it's been deemed that it's safer so that's what we've had to go for.

"It's a funny regulation because it calls for a maximum side-view height and then on top of that there is an area 50mm in front of the nose that we have to meet and that area is quite low down - much lower than the side view. What you end up with is almost two noses, the main bulk of the nose and a bulb sticking out from that to satisfy the regulations. I think it's an awful shame. To me the aesthetics of a Formula One car are important, the car should look good and not many of the owners of these noses could really love them."

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