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01-16-2008, 06:38 PM
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New Car For Red Bull Team
New Car For Red Bull Team
Red Bull unveiled the RB4 in Spain on Wednesday, the second car designed by technical chief Adrian Newey since he joined the team. The new car features the bridge front wing which was first used by McLaren and the team adopted towards the end of last season. One element which can't be seen outwardly is reliability, an issue which plagued the team last season. Team boss Christian Horner hopes the continuity within the team will help cure that problem in 2008. "It's always a key moment to see a new car run for the first time," he said. "Last year was a year of evolution, with the first Adrian Newey designed car. This year is the first in the team's history that we have continuity in all key elements: staff, drivers and engine partner." Related Info Red Bull RB4 Photo Gallery "Prospects for 2008 are encouraging and we are looking to make a step forward from where we finished last year. It is an extremely competitive field and the new challenge of running a common ECU with no driver aids will hopefully play into the hands of David and Mark, who certainly enjoyed the experience in testing of running without traction control and engine braking." Last season, Red Bull finished fifth in the championship - their best team result since joining the series - but they scored points in just six of 17 races. Newey, who has previously designed championship cars with Williams and McLaren, says the additional time spent on the 2008 design should help increase the overall performance on the track. "The RB3 was a completely different car to anything that had come out of Milton Keynes before," he said. "It was a more complicated car than its predecessor and that caused some problems internally, just learning how to operate it. "For the 2008 car, we had more time to refine the package, as the 2007 car was designed in quite a compressed period, and we didn't know the details of the engine until very late in the programme. This time, knowing the Renault engine meant we were able to refine the installation." Newey added that the arrival of Geoff Willis allowed him to concentrate more on the performance aspect of the car. Willis says the RB4 is actually more complex in its design than the RB3. "Ultimately, these days, a lot of reliability results from the packaging," said Willis. "We are trying to make cars smaller and more tightly packaged and compress the design stage to buy ourselves more time in the wind tunnel, so we make the job harder and harder for ourselves. In the past, there would be discussions about whether you wanted a reliable car or a fast car. Frankly, to be successful in today's championship, a car has to be both fast and reliable." No one knows more the pain of reliability than Mark Webber, who failed to finish seven times last season - six of those due to mechanical issues. When asked for a prediction for 2008, the outspoken Aussie was frank - do better than last year. "Be more reliable, a lot more reliable than last year," said Webber. "That wasn't good enough. We missed a lot of points through retirements, with mechanical problems so we'll see if we can get some of those points back. "Of course you want a fast car but you need something that's reliable. Reliability to finish races is vital." Webber added that having a few other teams come up on the wrong side of the checkered flag wouldn't hurt. "It's easy for teams to produce a lemon. I hope there are a few more of those around and that we've got ours right." For David Coulthard, who will begin his 15th F1 season, just making it through the installation lap Wednesday morning was a victory in itself. "A lot of parts were still arriving last night, so when I left for my bed it looked a bit bare, but this morning, there it was in all its glory!" he said with a cheeky smile. "It looks super with lots of nice detail on it and given that it did its installation lap and came back to the garage, so far we have achieved all our targets! Now we have to build from there." Red Bull also confirmed that Sebastien Buemi will be the team's official test and reserve driver for 2008, taking over from Robert Doornbos, who spent most of last season competing in the Champ Car series. The 19 year old, who made his F1 testing debut with Red Bull last summer, will also race full time in the GP2 series in 2008. 
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