Red Bull chief Christian Horner admits that design guru Adrian Newey is fully motivated, and contributing to the Red Bull chassis regarding the 2017 regulations.
Newey apparently took a sideways step from F1 to concentrate on other projects, such as yacht racing, and a new collaboration with Aston Martin regarding a certain hypercar. The new aero rules for 2017 though, have excited Adrian enough to point where he is fully involved in the RB13 design.
“In the last couple of years he’s been splitting his time 50:50 between Advanced Technology projects and F1, and that’s working very well,” Horner told Motorsport.com.
“The senior technical team have taken a step up and are doing a great job, as you can see with the current car. But Adrian’s influence and guidance is still very much there, and is very present with the 2017 car.
“He’s got a very high work ethic anyway, and he seems to be enjoying the challenge at the moment. I think for any engineer regulation changes are always stimulating, and I think that’s no different for Adrian or any members of the team.”
Having Newey onboard though doesn’t leave team boss Horner convinced that the forthcoming rules changes will benefit the team.
“There are no guarantees of anything in this business, but with a relatively clean sheet of paper it’s the same opportunity for everybody.
“We’ve got a great team and we’re relishing the challenge. There’s some very stiff opposition out there, and we don’t see it as a benefit one way or another.”
Christian then went on to say that the rule refresh should provide a boost to the commercial aspect of formula one, and reset peoples interest in the sport. This was something that Bernie (as the commercial rights holder) was pushing for ever since the introduction of the current hybrid formula in 2014.
“Inevitably there have been compromises, but generally yes, it is the right direction.
“I think the cars will be more exciting, more challenging to drive, and they will be faster and more impressive to watch.
“Hopefully with sufficient testing Pirelli will come up with a product that works well. I think there will be a bigger differential between drivers next year.
“We obviously championed very hard for a change to make the cars more challenging for the drivers, and I think 90 percent of what we positioned has been adopted.
“So I think it’s a step in the right direction. As with all these things it won’t be totally perfect and there will be evolution, but I think fundamentally it’s a very good step.”
Can Adrian continue to produce the goods for Red Bull? With Renault returning to form with signs of parity against their fellow manufacturers, few would bet against a Red Bull renaissance next year.
More to the point… will we see a bigger differential between drivers next year?
It’s nice to see Horner taking credit for 90% of the changes next year. That last 10% will be the bit that “won’t be totally perfect, of course.
I’m not sure that a “bigger differential between the drivers” is something to be targeted. Seb was pretty different to Webber in the exhaust blown diffuser days and that wasn’t very exciting.
Close racing and the better teams/drivers on the grid vying for all podium positions (not just 3rd). That’s be nice for a change.
The blown diffuser was counter intuitive, so hard to master. If the cars are more of a handfull, I’d think the challenge is the same, so then it’ll be interesting. I look forward to see what happens at the top 3 teams.
But I hope the fears about overtaking becoming more difficult are not true.
Motorsport only has enduring interest if there is close racing though, regardless of the challenge to the drivers.
Yep, hence my hope that (real) overtaking won’t become even more difficult.
I remain hopefully the comment about “a bigger differential between drivers” is reference to the ultimate influence that driver ability may have under the new regs, i.e. that a better/more instinctive/bigger balls driver will extract proportionately more laptime out of the car than is currently the case.
(Note: expect these hopes to have been dashed by mid-April 2017 as a procession of predominantly pay drivers slide around slightly less on wider tyres made of the same chocolate as today)
“It’s nice to see Horner taking credit for 90% of the changes next year.”
That’s not what he said at all. He said 90% of THEIR SUGGESTIONS were adopted. What percentage of the final set of changes that equates to is not mentioned anywhere.
You’re not a journalist then, eh?
I never said I was. Sorry, but if you’re trying to make a point I’m afraid it’s gone completely over my head.
I think the new regulations may be one step forward, two steps back. The new rules bring an increase in mechanical grip and in downforce, so it will be harder to overtake. Reducing downforce and increasing mechanical grip even further would have been my preference. The fact that Adrian Newey, an aero expert is excited by the new rules, is, with the greatest respect to Mr. Newey, a cause for concern.
If Newey’s more interested I’d assume that means that the emphasis on aero is going to be even greater. Hmm.
But the usual PR hype is in play: everything’s going to be much better next year – faster cars (how about the safety considerations?) S.O.S. More overtaking (with more emphasis on aero?)
Meanwhile the same rubbish power-plants, increasingly crap circuits, corrupt self-interested management, nepotism and ludicrously over-remunerated primadonnas at the wheel.
MotoGP isn’t perfect but it makes absolute nonsense of F1’s hoary old bull5h!t “pinnacle of motor sport” claim. In fact that applies to most bike racing, not least the TT.