Unlucky 13? Red Bull Racing reveals RB13

Red Bull Racing’s eagerly-awaited RB13 Formula 1 car became the latest new design to be revealed.

With the new rules for this season putting an extra emphasis on aerodynamics – where Adrian Newey-led design team excelled during its dominant years – Red Bull has been widely tipped for a return to championship contention in 2017.

The team won two races with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo last season, and is expecting further progress from engine supplier Renault too.

Unlike the other large teams, Red Bull Racing opted over a formal launch event and simply released images of the RB13 online.

The car features the shark fine and the thumb nose tip seen in most of 2017 cars so far.

Daniel Ricciardo believes the regulations overhaul has already achieved one aim by making the race cars look more imposing.

“It looks quite beautiful,” he said of the new Red Bull after seeing early images of it. “It definitely looks sleek. They look like the fastest cars in the world. That was the impression I got.”

Max Verstappen echoed his team-mate’s view.

“The car looks very aggressive,” he said. “Hopefully when it looks that aggressive it will be fast, but we still have to wait and see.”

The RB13 certainly looks beautiful. Hopefully it can challenge the mighty Mercedes for championship honours.

3 thoughts to “Unlucky 13? Red Bull Racing reveals RB13”

  1. Team principal Christian Horner described the RB13 as “one of the prettiest cars we’ve designed and made.”

    “The geometry of the car under these new regulations, the proportions looks right,” he said. “It looks mean, it looks fast.”

    “It’s that old adage ‘if it looks right, it tends to go alright’. And this car for sure looks right.”

    Chief technical officer Adrian Newey agreed the new regulations for 2017 are a change for the better.

    “There’s a feeling, which I do agree with that since we went to narrow-track cars back in 1998 the cars always looked a bit out-of-proportion,” he said. “Quite a narrow car, reasonably wide tyres, and very long cars, increasingly.”

    “So the proportions look strange. By going back to a wider track with a wider tyres, proportionally they should look better.”

    The RB13 will have its first run when testing begins at the Circuit de Catalunya tomorrow (February 27). “It always an anxious moment before the car runs for the first time, for it to drive out of the garage down the pit lane,” said Horner.

    “The first thing you want to see is it comes back at the end of the lap. But it’s an exciting moment to see the car break cover.”

    After winning two races last year and finishing second in the world championship the team has set it sights on competing with Mercedes in 2017.

    “Mercedes for sure they’re the triple world champions, they’re the team to beat,” said Horner. “They set the bar pretty high but that’s what we’re aspiring to.”

    “The driver line-up we have is fantastic, we’ve had great stability in the team, and we’re excited about the year ahead.”

    Source: F1Fanatic.co.uk

  2. Red Bull unveiled its latest Formula 1 car, the RB13, on Sunday, the opening in its nose becoming the main focus of attention. Former F1 technical director Gary Anderson offers his view on the intriguing device.

    The duct in the nose of the new Red Bull RB13 is the most obvious area of difference between this car and the rest.

    This part of the car is governed by the crash structure regulations, Article 15.4.3 dictating a single external vertical cross-section of at least 9000 square millimetres 50mm behind the tip of the nose.

    Article 3.7.5 of Formula 1’s technical regulations allows a single-inlet aperture in the nose, provided it is for the purpose of “driver cooling”.

    But this has to have a maximum projected surface area of 1500 square millimetres and, one-sixth of the size of the cross section mentioned above.

    Based on what Red Bull has released of the car, in my opinion this opening looks far bigger than that.

    At some point, through its ductwork, it might converge down to comply with the 1500 square millimetres regulations, but there is no way to see that from what we have seen so far.

    There can be some debate as to what you count as a duct for driver cooling. Usually, the argument is about this being its “primary purpose”.

    On the way to cooling the driver, it may just pass over some other hot surfaces to help control their temperature.

    Looking at the Red Bull, the sidepods are compact and drop away very quickly once you get past the driver, so there might be a need for that extra cooling.

    This duct is a good idea, because if you look at the other 2017 cars there is a solid surface at the end of the nose and for the airflow to get around this it has to decide on its stagnation point, in other words where it separated.

    With this duct you will probably get more uniform airflow around the sides of the nose structure.

    There are some other ducts where the nose meets the chassis, and while it’s impossible to know for sure there’s every chance they are to feed the cooling of ERS components that will be located low down in the sidepods and close to the centre of the car.

    Source: Motorsport.com

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