Red Bull RB8

Interesting given that there is a ban on developing engine internals, must be external or mapping. However having just read the posts regarding Francois Caubet talking about engines it sounds like the 15-18KG weight reduction isn't new for this season but is just a feature of the Renault engine over the last few seasons. As for their new speed increasing invention I can't find any links other than those to their now banned ride height system.

 

And I'm pretty sure that the FIA have banned "exotic engine mapping" this year.

 

I take it, its just for RBR as they are the works Renault team now. Maybe something Infinity helped with?

 

Has anyone got a link to the piece with Francois Caubet?

 

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/caubet-says-renault-helps-red-bull-run-light/

 

Cheers AG, saw that one, it doesn't sound like they have anything new for this season though.

 

I was referring to a german article on http://www.motorsport-total.com/

I could clip the interesting parts in german if anyone is interested.

 

please do, or I can put it through our translating team here at the firm, they owe me a few favours

 

Here the german text:

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(Motorsport-Total.com) - In der Formel 1 ist die Entwicklung der Motoren eingefroren. Eigentlich, denn den Konstrukteuren der Aggregate ist es trotzdem gestattet, kleinere Anpassungen vorzunehmen. Auch Renault war deshalb nicht untätig, als sich die Fahrer und ihre Teams im vergangenen Jahr in die lange Winterpause verabschiedeten. In Viry-Châtillon wurde kräftig gewerkelt. Das Ergebnis ist ein noch besserer RS27.

...

...

An der Schwelle zum neuen Rennjahr wähnt sich Caubet mit der jüngsten Version des RS27 sehr gut aufgestellt. "Der Mercedes-Motor ist zwar ungefähr 15 PS stärker als unserer, doch dafür liegt unser Triebwerk in Sachen Fahrbarkeit und Spritverbrauch vorne. Deshalb sind wir unterm Strich ein klein wenig besser als Mercedes", meint der Franzose. Auch die anderen Rivalen hätten das Nachsehen.

"Das Ferrari- Aggregat hat zwar ungefähr die gleiche PS-Zahl wie wir, verbraucht aber mehr Benzin und lässt sich schwerer fahren", erklärt Caubet und nennt einen weiteren Vorteil seines Motors: "Wegen unseres geringeren Verbrauchs kann Red Bull das Rennen mit 15 bis 18 Litern weniger Benzin im Tank starten als die Konkurrenz. Das macht einen großen Unterschied", sagt Caubet.

Auf diese Weise können sich die Fahrer speziell am Rennstart entscheidend in Szene und vor allem vom Feld absetzen - dem niedrigeren Benzingewicht sei Dank. Caubet verspricht 2012 aber noch mehr: "Wir wollen unsere Haltbarkeit von 98 Prozent auf einhundert Prozent steigern." Und die durch das Regelwerk bedingten Leistungsverluste möchte die Mannschaft ebenfalls rasch egalisieren.

Gemeinsam mit Red Bull scheint Renault bereits eine Möglichkeit aufgetan zu haben. "Sie nehmen nun die Rolle eines Werksteams für uns ein", meint Caubet und erklärt: "Zusammen mit ihnen haben wir eine Lösung gefunden, um den Leistungsverlust wettzumachen." Um was es sich handelt, lässt sich der Motorenchef nicht entlocken. Caubet sagt nur so viel: "Es ist eine clevere Entwicklung."
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Perfect for Sky. Ugly.

 

http://en.espnf1.com/redbull/motorsport/story/70683.html

 

I knew they would have something up their sleeve. Grrrrrr.

 

Typical newey.

 

Very.

 

The FIA have been quite clever with their exhaust rule change. With the positioning regulations and the fact that the exhaust outlet needs to be visible from above and innovation is likely to be highly visible unlike the magic that Red Bull managed to work with their diffuser and under body designs. My gut feeling is that any major exhaust innovations will likely only give a team an advantage for a few races until the teams around them copy it.

Nice to hear of some innovation in F1 though, just hope it does lead to another dominating car all season. My wish list if for Merc, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull to be all challenging for poll positions and for Vettel to start a few place off pole now and again to show us he can win races like a true double world champ

 

Fixed. The Ferrari and Mercedes shouldn't be allowed to start races, let alone win them.

 

I think the stepped noses should be pixelated to allow pre-watershed viewing ;-)

 

If the exhaust is clever, how much of that area of the car is homogenated, making copying difficult? If he could, I'd imagine Newey would want the chassis to be integral to how the exhaust works, so other teams who copy it can't get the same advantage. I guess it's a lot like the diffusers last year, where Red Bull planned for it so could extract much more performance.

 

given where it has to exit the car it's all mainly body work. Chassis can be altered too during the year as they are allowed to be refresh tested from what I have read. It's going to be really interesting to find out what they have done. Since it involves Renault they you would imagine it has something to do with the engine, but with engine development frozen and such strict rules on exhausts its either a red herring or something very clever. Personally I'm thinking red herring and it a blown front wing using that mysterious slit in the stepped nose that they were quite quick to say was for driver cooling. Given the size of the holes on others cars the 2 Red Bull drivers must get seriously hot!

 

Launch Analysis: Red Bull RB8

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/launch-analysis-red-bull-rb8/