Red Bull's Recipe for Success?

No, this isn't another tribute to the Newey / Vettel combo...though Newey undoubtedly had a large hand in this.

Just read an interesting article by Gary Anderson, in which he speculates about an observation he made during the Japanese GP.

He noticed on the thermal camera images, that part of the front floor, or "tea tray" appeared to make contact with the track and got hot at relatively low speeds...something that didn't happen when the car was running flat out.

He then speculated that the designers may have found a way to create floor brackets, that "flex" when hot, raising the entire floor, which gives an aero advantage as the car can be set up with lower static/stationary ride heights. Because such as system works on the principle of thermal expansion, the brackets would be cool and therefore rigid when the car was sent for scrutineering and would therefore pass the FIA's flex / load tests.

When combined with the return to 2012 spec tyres, which apparently expand by up to 5mm when hot, which would raise the floor of the car by around 2-3mm, Gary reckons this could mak the RB 0.5-0.7sec a lap faster than any other car on the grid.

He also pointed out that this is something other teams could not simply copy, as it would only work if the car had been designed that way from scratch. The RB is designed with a more "raked" chassis, about 5mm lower at the front and 10mm higher at the rear than most other cars, but the car's sidepods and diffuser are designed to compensate for this, sealing the underside to maintain downforce.

Red Bull's Success Down to Lateral Thinking?

And we wonder why the other teams struggle to match Red Bull...

is sheer brilliance really all these concepts, quite ridiculous the ideas they come up with. the tyre change was crucial, horner was begging for it because he must of known newey wanted it for the car to maximise it's potential. five wins straight says everything.

But they need the right tyres. They moaned more then any other team at the start of the season in the end the tyres changed and look what happened.

The tyre change helped RB, but lets not pretend they werent on top beforehand either

It was a hell of a lot closer though. Other teams looked like winning. Rbr may still have romped the title but it wasn't a given. Merc where getting poles lotus looked good on the tyres provided. Then it reverted to last years and season over. But Pirelli called it would happen.

The initial tyres were basically a complete leveller. If it takes that to allow teams to challenge Vettel then they should be ashamed of themselves.

May as well call for everyone to drag a caravan behind them.

bogbrush wrote:The initial tyres were basically a complete leveller. If it takes that to allow teams to challenge Vettel then they should be ashamed of themselves.

May as well call for everyone to drag a caravan behind them.

Calm down BB.

Since everyone runs the same tyres, they shouldn't be an issue. That said, the greater expansion of last year's tyres do apparently assist what is already a very clever bit of design by Newey and his team.

Agree though that its up to the other teams to raise their game and find ways of improving their cars' performance.

dyrewolfe wrote:

bogbrush wrote:The initial tyres were basically a complete leveller. If it takes that to allow teams to challenge Vettel then they should be ashamed of themselves.

May as well call for everyone to drag a caravan behind them.

Calm down BB.

Since everyone runs the same tyres, they shouldn't be an issue. That said, the greater expansion of last year's tyres do apparently assist what is already a very clever bit of design by Newey and his team.

Agree though that its up to the other teams to raise their game and find ways of improving their cars' performance.

Calmly, pulling the same caravan would be not an issue then? The early 2013 tyres were a joke, though I think even the ones they switched to are stupid.

Not sure what was excited about my post but be assured this one was typed with a pulse rate at 60bpm.

It was the bit about towing caravans BB. Sounds like one of Barmy Bernie's ideas to make F1 more appealing to the masses (along with the track sprinklers and Mario Kart style bonus points).