GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => Pit Pass => Topic started by: John S on August 24, 2009, 11:35:55 PM
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For me it's Ross Brawn's comments that resonate most on the subject of RBR introducing KERS he says it's a high risk strategy, shame Brawn can't respond if the others use it.
From Red Bull's, and everyone elses perspective, it's not the point in the season when an all or nothing gamble can be tried.
If RBR do use KERS later and manage to take either championship with it we can expect the ban for next year to be rescinded.
By Jonathan Noble and Pablo Elizalde, Today, autosport.com
Red Bull Racing has ruled out introducing its KERS system at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, although the team is yet to decide if it will use it in other races.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit revealed over the European Grand Prix weekend that it was evaluating the possibility of using KERS for the first time at Spa in order to boost it chances in the championship.
But team boss Christian Horner admitted that racing KERS at Spa could prove distracting, although he claimed Red Bull will still consider using it at the Italian Grand Prix.
"Spa is not so different to Silverstone and we had a strong car there, so to introduce KERS at this stage could only be disruptive," said Horner.
"We will make a decision for Monza after Spa. It would be the Renault/Red Bull KERS one that was developed at the beginning of the season. We will continue to look at it."
Ross Brawn, whose team is leading the championship ahead of Red Bull, believes introducing KERS at this point of the season could prove very good if things go right, but a disaster if they don't.
"It could be a fantastic decision, or it could be a disaster," said Brawn. "One or the other. You've got to admire the effort they are making. I would not like to tackle a KERS system mid-season with no testing, but they have had the benefit of some experience with it, we've had no experience.
"We had some in the early days, and I guess it is a Renault system and that was raced for at least a few races early on this year."
Brawn admitted running KERS was not a possibility for his team, despite Mercedes-Benz having offered the system.
"It is not an option for us. Mercedes and McLaren very kindly offered it to us, but in installing the engine at such a late stage we put quite a lot of weight on the car because we had to modify the chassis and modify the gearboxes.
"The cooling is not optimised, there is too much oil cooling and not enough water cooling. We don't have enough ballast on the car to run a KERS system. The McLaren-Mercedes system is probably the lightest but we don't have enough ballast to take off the car and run to the weight limit, so for us it is not really an option."