An interesting article over at Autosport about Red Bull’s media release package using images of their older car and avoiding any images of their new car, the RB16B.
As the article points out, Red Bull released several press images after running their older car and the new car but none of the images included were of the new RB16B. Just shots of the older car.
As the article points out, this isn’t by mistake and most likely was done to prevent competitors from seeing their latest innovations. Autosport argues that the rear of the car and suspension design is the most likely culprit that they want to keep under wraps until the first test.
What this does make me wonder is if the traditional car launch, which used to be full of pomp and circumstance and later became a low-key online affair. We’ve seen for years now that the car used in many car launches is a bit of a show car and is mainly used to show the livery and paint schemes with the actual new challenger fully revealed at the first test.
If this is the case and a team like Red Bull isn’t going to give the fans a look at their new car, what is the point of a formal car launch until the first test and if that’s the case, could they make a official car launch day at the first test with all the press there, lots of fun events etc? Maybe get some of that panache back into the car launch instead of just streaming pictures and interviewing drivers?
Sure, teams want to be isolated and make their launch the news of the day and I get that. They wouldn’t want to share their launch with other teams. But if they aren’t going to actually launch their new car until the first test, what’s the point?
I’d like F1 to take a new, fresh look at car launches and come up with something more exciting than hiding your car and waiting until the first test or just streaming video of driver interviews and a “show car” pushed around a stage. Surely we could do more for the world’s most advanced form of racing?
First, I predict their test livery will be a negative of their typical colours. Eye barfingly amazing, it shall be!
Secondly, this gets me very excited. Nothing makes ears as sharp as a good secret. Hopefully it makes more of an impact than DAS.
I reckon Christian could get the Spice Girls back, or at least one of them.
It’s RedBull so nothing they do to “hide” things surprises me anymore. I remember when they ran their cars in all black livery in pre-season testing years ago. These new car reveals are just for show with little substance. This elevated level of obscurity in F1 is nothing new. These types of incidents used to infuriate Bernie E. He’s gone and the in-sport spying paranoia is back.
In an article in Formula1.com today, Ferrari says they’ve recovered a bunch of their straight line speed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the reason why Merc has slaughtered them in the past decade? They focus so much on winning Monza, that the Merc and Redbull catch them in the twisty bit circuits?
They lost that power advantage after the FIA got involved with their engine in 2019 and we saw that impact in 2020. The mid-speed and slow corners are also troublesome for them but they were in 2019 if memory serves correctly and due to straight line speed, they made up for it.
True nuff, which is why they did excel at speed tracks like Monza. Just seems to me that’s the one thing they always kind of try to build their car for, is their home race. But it looks like the old ‘Drive for show, put for dough’ idiom, where Mercedes are okay at the drives, but much better at the putting. IMO