It's no secret that Red Bull's success mantra lies in its RBZ7. Here's all about the mean machine....
It's no secret that Red Bull's success mantra lies in its RBZ7. Here's all about the mean machine....
The RB7, the Red Bull Racing car for the 2011 F1 season is a car alright. It has 4 tyres, an engine, a gearbox, a front and rear wing and everything else that every other car on the F1 grid has, so then why is it that the RB7 is winning more races than its competitors? The RB7 has notched up 255 points for the Red Bull Racing team and along the way has clinched pole position at all the 7 Grand Prix held this season. Sebastian Vettel has raced his RB7 to 5 victories this season scoring 161 driver's championship points en route. So why is the Red Bull Racing car better than all the others? What makes it different?
Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel celebrates on the podium
after winning the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit
de Catalunya on in Barcelona recently.
Adrian Newey
The Chief Technical Officer of the Red Bull Racing team and the brain behind the designs of the Red Bull Racing car is where the credit should start. For the lesser known, Newey is one of the only two designers to have won Constructor's Championships with 3 different Formula1 teams. He has dominated F1 car design since the 1990s and 2000s and has won championships with WilliamsF1, Mclaren and now Red Bull Racing. Michael Schumacher is regarded as a Formula1 legend for having won 7 World Driver's Championship titles. It is little known that Newey too has 7 World Constructor's Championships to his creditu00a0-- 5 with WilliamsF1, 1 each with Mclaren and Red Bull Racing.
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Aerodynamics
Newey's speciality is to create the most aerodynamically efficient Formula1 cars and that is exactly what the RB7 is all about. The compact design and packaging of the rear end of the RB7 is what many in the paddock believe is helping the RB7 generate efficient downforce and F1 fanatics will agree that efficient downforce is king in Formula1. The challenge in Formula1 is to generate maximum downforce with least drag penalty and that sort of stuff we would rather leave to rocket scientists! All-in-all, the efficient downforce allows the RB7 to carry more speeds into the corners than the rest. 
The Red Bull RBZ car
Drag Reduction System
Red Bull Racing's drag reduction system is believed to be working more efficiently than their competitors. As witnessed in Spain, Red Bull'su00a0drivers were the only ones who could use the DRS in the corners during practice and qualifying. For the uninitiated again, DRS is the adjustable rear wing that a driver can use to reduce drag and increase straightline speed. Red Bull's overall downforce levels are much higher than their rivals which allows them to use their DRS for a longer duration and hence generate more speed.
Kinetic Energy Recovery System
KERS is the power boost system that has been re-introduced in Formula1 this season. KERS will harness braking energy, store it in batteries and make it available to a driver as extra power (around 80bhp) for little over 6 seconds every lap. As simple as it sounds, Red Bull Racing's Achilles heel this season has been its KERS system. Newey's radical KERS system hasn't been fully reliable, but has certainly not lost Red Bull any races yet. The innovative system is rumoured to be a 'start-only' KERS system. This system is apparently charged only for use off the starting line to give the drivers enough power boost ensuring that they are not vulnerable to the Ferraris and Mclarens as they race into the first corner. The start-only KERS system is also rumoured to be 20kgs lighter than the conventional systems but emit only 60% output in comparison. Considering that the Red Bulls can only be beaten off the start line, this does seem to be yet another Newey touch to the RB7.u00a0
So how does one beat the Red Bull's RB7? Just like the other teams, I too am still trying to figure that out!
Driver standings
1) Sebastian Vettel...161 pts
2) Jenson Button...101
3) Mark Webber...94
4) Lewis Hamilton...85
5) Fernando Alonso...69
6) Felipe Massa...32
7) Vitaly Petrov...31
8) Nick Heidfeld...29
9) Michael Schumacher...26
10) Nico Rosberg...26
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