Red Bull and Newey, running late for 2013, are already preparing for 2014
Unlike in 2011, the Red Bull team had to fight hard to take the lead in both the constructors' and drivers' standings. Relatively, having focused on the 2012 season for a long time, the Austrian team believes they are a bit behind on their 2013 project, even though the RB9 should be more of an evolution of its predecessor. This doesn't, however, prevent Adrian Newey from already working on the 2014 car.
Barely has the 2012 season delivered its verdict that the teams are already turning towards the next season. While the Sauber team is confident that the future C32 will make its first laps on February 5, 2013, the start date of winter testing, the teams that fought to the end for the title have no time to waste, starting with Red Bull who will have to defend a hard-won title again: “Surely, knowing Adrian [Newey, editor’s note], it will arrive late,” joked Christian Horner, director of the triple world champion team of constructors, on the year of Servus TV. “[The RB9] is delayed in design but the people at Milton Keynes are working extremely hard.”
Champion of the constructors for the third consecutive year, after a lukewarm start to the season, notably due to restrictions surrounding blown diffusers that had given wings to the Austrian team until then, Red Bull had to battle until the very end of the championship, where most teams were already eyeing 2013. Nothing alarming, however, insofar as the technical regulations for 2013 will resemble those of 2012: [The RB9] is an evolution because the regulations are relatively stable. But the dangerous thing in Formula 1 is to underestimate your rivals and Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, and Lotus, as we saw this year, are extremely strong and highly motivated teams. We have accomplished great things over the past three years and we are determined to keep the trophies we have worked hard for, but we cannot take anything for granted and that will play a big part in our motivation as we approach 2013.
But if the technical regulations evolve little, it does not necessarily mean that Adrian Newey and his team of engineers will be able to rest on their laurels, as the 2013 season will still bring some new features while the regulatory stability means that everything will depend on perfecting the gains of 2012 and paying attention to details. The main focus in 2013 is that Pirelli will modify its front tires. We need to understand how this will affect the car’s aerodynamics, which will be our work for the winter, analyzes Adrian Newey. We got a brief glimpse of the new tires during the Brazilian Free Practices to get an idea, but the real work will only start when we can really test the tires. Until then, we will simply do our research work for 2013. As Christian [Horner] said, there is absolutely no guarantee about the level of our car next year. We know what we are trying to do, but we don’t know if it will be better or not compared to our main rivals. That’s what’s fascinating about this sport: it’s difficult to predict, from one year to the next, what will happen. It’s close, and it will just take one team to find a small advantage and maintain it throughout the year. We are simply doing our job and pushing as hard as we can.
In this, the 2012 season has been one of the most formative for the British engineer, who doesn’t hesitate to say it was the toughest battle he’s been involved in: In 2010, we had a very fast car but reliability issues meant the drivers’ title was decided during the last race. Last year, we couldn’t take anything for granted, but we could approach things with a bit more ease as we had the pace and reliability. This season was different. The car shone at times—Sebastian [Vettel] won in Bahrain and Mark Webber in Monaco—but we didn’t have the consistency we would have liked. As an engineer, it was very frustrating because we didn’t fully understand the car and what was happening with it, but we made progress in Valencia and then in Singapore, and that gave us the advantage when Sebastian won four times in a row and rose to the championship challenge.
The fact remains that, if the RB9 were really to experience delays, the Austrian team has once again demonstrated its ability to react, especially since Adrian Newey is accustomed to delays at Red Bull. However, the Briton revealed that a small working group was already at work on the RB10, which will mark the beginning of the V6 Turbo era in 2014. Indeed, preparations for the 2014 season will undoubtedly spice up the 2013 season, as the technical teams will have to find the right balance between the development of their 2013 cars and the development of the 2014 models.
