The Red Bull RB9, a single-seater born in the purple

Holder of the last three world crowns, drivers and constructors, and awaited like a white wolf, the Red Bull team presented its new single-seater today, the RB9. Adrian Newey, who had recently confided that the RB9 would only be an evolution of the RB8 from the end of the season because the regulations are relatively stable, did not lie to us: It was mostly about refining the RB8. There are no huge changes. It’s more or less an evolution. All the principles are the same as last year, confirms Adrian Newey during the presentation. The devil was rather in the details with this car. We have arranged certain things that seemed to us could be improved. Development throughout the year is now fundamental.

Thus, like its predecessor, the latest model from Milton Keynes still features a broken nose, which, however, no longer leads to an air intake. Adrian Newey doesn’t seem to have changed his approach regarding the exhaust exits, even though some might doubt that the British engineer has sought to refine the concept for greater performance. However, much like Sauber, the Red Bull technical team seems to have put its sidepods on a diet to maximize the amount of air directed towards the rear of the car, thus generating more downforce if that air is properly channeled.

Adrian Newey also repeats that the battle Red Bull had to fight to win both titles in 2012 necessarily impacted the development of the RB9: « It was difficult to try to develop last year’s car and research for this year’s one. It left us very little time to make this car. Having it here today, two days before the first tests, is a remarkable effort, » emphasizes the Briton.

No doubt, however, that like the RB8 before it, the RB9 will undergo significant development during winter testing and throughout the season, especially since Adrian Newey recently mentioned that the development work would not properly begin until the 2013 Pirelli tires were fitted on the car: « There hasn’t been a major regulatory change over the winter. The most significant change doesn’t concern the regulations: it’s the new Pirelli tires. We had a brief glimpse of them during Free Practice 1 in Brazil, but it was very hot, the track was “green,” and, truthfully, we didn’t learn much. […] We need to continue to understand the tires. Every time we thought we understood them last year, surprises occurred, and we realized we didn’t fully understand them. Anyway, they’ve changed the tires this year. Past experience teaches us that it’s only when testing begins that we really know where we stand with the tires. »

The most significant change ultimately concerns the livery of the RB9 where Infiniti now takes the lion’s share and adds a purple hue to the mount of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. Indeed, at the end of 2012, the Milton Keynes team, a partner of Infiniti since 2011, announced the extension of this partnership with the Japanese manufacturer, a member of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, which thus became the title sponsor of the Austrian team.

Now we can only hope that the RB9, born into purple like ancient emperors, will not go up in purple flames.