Fresh from Sebastian Vettel‘s victory in Valencia last weekend, Red Bull Racing Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey is already looking forward to the teams home race.
“We are really looking forward to our home race at Silverstone.” said Newey. “Red Bull Racing is just thirty minutes down the road and naturally a lot of our staff get the chance to see the race. It is difficult to forecast how we will perform; there are so many variables such as track temperatures, so many swings in team performances.”
Contemplating trying out the new Silverstone track layout, which was first used in the recent MotoGP race, it seems Newey cannot wait for the challenge. “We look forward to trying the new section of the circuit in anger for the first time. Like all the other teams we received the plan view map which we have simulated, but not until we actually run will we be able to assess details such as bumps and grip changes. It looks good and from my experience at Silverstone's MotoGP round a week ago, the riders loved it.”
It would seem that the team is happy with the current package, especially with the performace that the RB6 put up in Valencia. So much so, the team aren’t planning on any major updates for Silverstone.
“We won't have any large changes for the car at Silverstone, mainly small evolutionary changes to the front and rear wings. We did make some revisions for Valencia with a new diffuser and updated F-Duct which all worked well, the team worked incredibly hard and Sebastian drove a great race. He did really well to manage the car through the race after he locked up the brakes and flat spotted the front left tyre when the race restarted after the safety car period. It was a huge relief that Mark was OK after his big accident.”
“It's tougher now, after one and a half years of the new regulations (from 2009), to find big gains but it is interesting to see how our exhaust system has become popular along the pit lane!”