Design guru Adrian Newey says the 2009 Red Bull is not an updated version of its predecessor but rather an entirely new car due to the radical overhaul of F1's regulations for this season.
Huge changes have taken place to the aerodynamics of this year's cars in the wake of the new regulations, while 2009 will also mark the return of slick tyres as well as the introduction of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System. And all of these changes had to be taken into account when designing this year's Red Bull.
"2009 arguably sees the biggest rule change since flat bottoms were introduced in 1983, a very major change," Red Bull's chief technical officer said at Monday's launch of the RB5.
"We have taken a clean sheet, blue-sky approach, looking at the implications of these rules and how to interpret them, while not changing things simply for the sake of it. Apart from the gearbox internals, there is hardly any carry-over from RB4.
"The main area of change with going back to slick tyres was in terms of weight distribution, as it will put greater strain on the rear tyres, so at the design stage, we moved the weight distribution forward a bit."
However, Newey reckons the new rules could see the field move further apart rather than close the gap.
"Last year the entire field was very close, with a very tight grid and five different chassis manufacturers winning races. A major rule change is likely to have the opposite effect, just one or two teams get it right and do all the winning."
As for whether the changes will improve overtaking, the Red Bull designer says not matter who much the cars are altered it won't help unless the circuits also undergo modifications.
"A bit more, but not a huge amount as people overlook the fact that circuit layout is the most important factor for generating passing moves," he said when asked about overtaking.
Source planetf1.com Today
Welcome
Guests: 620
Hidden: 0
Users: 0
