The world championship winner team Red Bull Racing has unveiled its latest car, the RB7, in front of the media at the Valencia circuit’s pitlane.
Designed by Adrian Newey and powered by the Renault V8 engine, the RB7 will have the unique opportunity to defend its titles this season.
The car features a high nose, an even higher engine cover compared to the previous Red Bull, the RB6, plus a concept rear wing.
The RB6 dominated the 2010 season, taking nine victories in the hands of world champion Sebastian Vettel and third-place finisher Mark Webber. In addition to this winning performance, last year’s car started on pole position 15 times from 19 Grands Prix.
Can this new RB7 continue that impressive result this season? The new car certainly looks great and Vettel will have the chance to shakedown the RB7 during the opening day’s official practice session at Valencia. Let see how it compares to the other 2011 cars.
After missing out on the chance to win the drivers’ championship last season, Mark Webber has commented that he is determined to succeed this year. Autosport.com has the story.
Mark Webber says he is determined to improve his performance during the 2011 season after missing out on the title last year.
The Australian led the championship for much of the second half of the season, but ended up finishing in third position behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
But Webber is adamant that he will have another chance to fight for the title this season, and the Red Bull racer is eager to make the most of it.
“I have a great opportunity and a great team of people around me to focus and go out there and try and improve on what I did last year,” Webber told reporters at Valencia following the launch of the new RB7 car.
“There are a whole load of things I did right last year, but still some very proud moments. We are not sure how the results will be initially because there are some good opposition but we are very optimistic that the car will be very, very good and the guys have done another good job with that.
“Head on mate, and going to do the best job I can. I am going to start the season better than I did last year as well. I didn’t start season as good but 80 percent of season in front was good so we will try and improve a little bit on those things and go for it.”
The Australian has no doubts that Red Bull will be a force to be reckon with once more, although he concedes the battle at the front will be very intense again.
“We didn’t achieve what we achieved last year because we didn’t know what we were doing,” Webber said. “I enjoy racing a lot more than testing. The team worked incredibly well, there are a lot of firsts for everything, but motivation is not a problem for any of us to go into this campaign.
“It is enjoyable to upset other people’s plans and that is what competition is about. We have to try and do it again but we know we have a huge, huge battle on our hands and we know we have the people and the continuity to go and fight for this very strongly.
He added: “I enjoy the monitor coming down on the cockpit and the race weekends are very enjoyable, but what is interesting and fascinating to having been in F1 for quite a long time now, is seeing a new car develop and thrown together in such a short period of time with such precision so to go develop the car and work hard over the next few weeks.
“That is the thing that is exciting to prepare ourselves as much as we can for the first race. We will be constantly moving – pushing very, very aggressively in terms of reliability and performance and understanding different situations.”
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says last year’s titles have given the team confidence to do better, but he claimed the world champion squad will still be humble in its approach.
The Milton Keynes-based team enjoyed a great 2010 season and went on to win the first titles in its short history.
Although Red Bull will start 2011 as hot favourites once more, Horner says the team will not be arrogant, and insists the titles have only helped improve morale and confidence within it.
“This year is no different to any other,” said Horner during the launch of the new RB7 car at Valencia.
“I think if we had not have won either championship last year there would have been that expectation and obviously the pressure that comes with that. We’ve achieved that and achieved that in a short space of time and I think it is like winning your first grand prix.
“Out of that comes confidence but not arrogance, but the team goes into this year very, very motivated and very committed but you have to remember we are still an independent team with a customer engine that achieved some remarkable things last year and that is our target again, again, obviously this year.
“Inevitably last year it was a long year, we face the longest year in F1 this year with 20 races, which will be a challenge and the performance between different teams will flow from the different circuits we visit but I am confident that over the course of the season we are very well equipped.”
Horner is aware that the battle for the 2011 championships will be extremely hard, but admitted his team is still savouring the successes of last year.
“It is a new situation for the team,” he added. “It is only 10 weeks since Abu Dhabi and those weeks have gone pretty quickly, so the realisation of what we achieved last year was pretty special for everyone in the team.
“So obviously we have turned up here in 2011 as the reigning world champions and the target is to do our very, very best to defend both those titles. The opposition we have in Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes is formidable so all we can do it our very best as we did last year and at the end of the day the championship table won’t lie.”
He also admitted the team had to work extra hard to make sure the car was ready for the first test of the year.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm and a huge amount of commitment. This has been the shortest build and production time in Red Bull’s short history and the effort that has gone in from the factor has been quite phenomenal.
“Adrian doesn’t release his drawings any earlier these days and they built the car in less time. They sacrificed the family time at Christmas and so on. Testimony to what we have seen in the pitlane.”
Source: Autosport.com
2010 champion Sebastian Vettel has commented that Red Bull Racing will need to make another new step to defend its titles this season. Autosport.com has the details.
World champion Sebastian Vettel believes Red Bull will need to take another step forward this season in order to retain the crowns won last year.
Vettel became the youngest ever world champion last season after charging to the top with victory in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.
Now the German admits Red Bull will have to work extra hard in order to continue on top now his team will be the hunted one.
“Whatever we achieved makes us all very proud and no one can take it away from us, so I think that is a huge plus, but we start here, four tests to go and 20 races to go,” Vettel said during the launch of the 2011 car.
“Everyone starts with zero points so everyone has the same chance to win the world championship this year.
“It will be a tough battle and a long hard fight so I think we need to focus again and motivation is not a problem. I think as a sportsman naturally we are looking forward to achieve the next thing.
“Obviously it is a difficult situation that we are in now, probably more difficult than we were in last year when we said ‘Right let’s focus and go for the title’, and this year is a different story.
“We have to try to defend it, but we have to develop from how we were last year otherwise we do a step back and the others pass us. We have to stay focused and try learning every day and try to get better otherwise.
“Naturally that is what the others do after they got defeated last year, they try to get better, so if we approached the year the same as last year we would not move forward, so we need to try to move forward again.”
Vettel, who got his first taste of the new Red Bull RB7 at Valencia on Tuesday morning, conceded it is very hard to predict how the season will develop.
But he claimed his team is not afraid of having pushed the limits with the design of the new car in order to make it more competitive.
“I think winning the championship, no matter when or for whom never comes easy,” he said. “As I have said many times now, we have a lot of races this year and a lot of things that will possible change through the season.
“So even if you start with one of the quickest cars you might be facing a second half of the season with a car that is potentially not quick enough or the other way around, so it is difficult to predict.
“It is the usual stuff, we never started the season being afraid of what we had. Sometimes F1 cars are built on the limit so it’s not impossible that something breaks down.
“We had some issues with reliability at the beginning of last year, others had some issues at the end so you might think reliability might be the last potential problem to have but that is how F1 goes sometimes and that is the exciting bit. That is the challenge, at the end of the day.”
The world champion admitted he cannot take for granted that the new Red Bull will be the car to beat again, although he is very confident the team has managed to produce another winner.
“For some reasons, we have people on board who work in a smart and clever way and who build a very strong package,” he said. “It is not as if we fired all those people at the end of the season and I had to build the car on my own.
“I think as drivers we all rely on each other and it is usual situation in the team, we have those strong and important people on board so I am confident we will have a good package again this year but you never know until you see all the rest of the other cars and maybe someone came along with a very smart idea you haven’t thought of.
“So it’s not automatically given that you have the most competitive car or the strongest car, but as I said – if you start with a slight disadvantage, it is a long season and it can turn around As usual it is impossible to predict.”
Red Bull’s technical chief Adrian Newey believes it is crucial that his team gets its KERS working properly in 2011 if it’s not to lose out to its rivals.
The Kinetic Energy Recovery System is making a return to Formula 1 this season and, unlike in 2009, all teams are expected to run it.
Two years ago, Red Bull developed its own KERS but decided not to race it as its main rival Brawn GP was also not using it.
But Newey reckons this year his team cannot afford to not get KERS working properly, as he believes the system will be a big advantage during race starts.
“The RB5 was actually packaged to take KERS and we did run it briefly pre-season,” said Newey during the launch of the new car at Valencia. “We took the view at the start that there were other things we wanted to concentrate on in 2009 so we chose not to race with it through the season.
“Packaging is a challenge with KERS and the big challenge is to try and come up with a solution that doesn’t compromise the aerodynamics too much, otherwise you drop the performance benefit that you get from putting KERS on.
“We are here to try hard to try and develop it through the pre-season so that we are confident that it does give us performance. I think one of the things that came clearly in 2009 was that the start-line performance of KERS was important.
“Fortunately the team that we were battling with, which was Brawn that year, also didn’t have KERS so neither had an advantage over the other in that sense, so this year I think no doubt with McLaren and Ferrari and Mercedes having KERS and being extremely competitive, then we need to get it to work if for no other reason than simply performance off the line.”
Despite last year’s RB6 being the strongest car of the field, Newey is hopeful the new RB7 will benefit from the development of its predecessors to be even more competitive.
“First of all the car is third generation of a lineage starting with RB5, so it is further development of the family,” he said. “We have adapted the car to suit the regulation changes, so putting KERS back on the car, going back to single diffuser, a few other details to suit the regulations.
“It is also difficult to design the car to Pirelli tyres. We obviously had a short test in Abu Dhabi post race last year but tyres have developed further since then, so it is a matter of learning as we go on through the tests.”
Source: Autosport.com