Word coming in from Turkey is that Red Bull Racing has decidedly not stood pat on its car design, which has it leading both the manufacturer and drivers championships.
It’s Adrian Newey making the changes, so I suppose we shouldn’t doubt, but I can’t help feel a bit “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” reaction to the news.
Here’s the news from the BBC’s Jonathan Legard, with a couple of his Twitter posts:
Red Bull rivals beware. Just been told to expect a “very different looking” RB6. New parts still arriving. Big update for Valencia too
about 4 hours ago via UberTwitterRed Bull running first F duct tomorrow
about 1 hour ago via UberTwitter
It looks like Mark Webber will get the first go with the F-duct in practice. It should be interesting.
It’s not that hard to figure why Red Bull is making this move — it has to keep ahead of the Jones, after all. But it is a ton of money to drop into development of something that’s already been banned for 2011.
Among the Jones Red Bull will be trying to stay in front of is Force India, which Legard also reports is bringing an F-duct to Turkey:
Force India running F duct for first time tomorrow. Drivers recommended operating by wrist. Liuzzi says big improvement
about 3 hours ago via UberTwitter
It seems like this might be a race where enough new bits arrive that the grid order could get reshuffled a bit. Force India is trying to pull ahead of Renault, for instance, and McLaren and Ferrari will both be trying to inch firmly past each other and, they hope, past Red Bull.
At least, it gives us something to watch out for. Apparently Virgin also has its first big update of the year. Time to battle Williams for P. 18 guys!
