RB, Red Bull’s recently-renamed second Formula 1 team, has announced three major appointments to its technical division.
The team previously known as AlphaTauri has appointed Tim Goss as its chief technical officer for the new season. Besides having almost three decades of experience with McLaren, Goss most recently worked for the FIA.He joined the motorsport governing body in 2021, originally in the single-seater technical group. Last year Goss was elevated to the role of technical director at the federation.
Goss will report to new team principal Laurent Mekies, who joined them from Ferrari at the beginning of the year. Another new appointment, Guillaume Cattelani, has been named deputy technical director and will report to Jody Egginton, who continues as technical director.
Cattelani previously worked for Red Bull Technology, which supplies parts to both the brand’s F1 teams.
RB has also pulled off a coup by securing the services of Alan Permane, previously the long-serving sporting director of Alpine under that team’s many previous identities, who left his previous position in the middle of last year. He has been named racing director at RB and will report to Mekies.
“After a few months of downtime it’s great to return to racing again,” said Permane. “From long experience, I know how professional, driven and competitive the people within this race team are and I can’t wait to see where that spirit can take the team in the future.”
Mekies said the trio of appointments “add a vast amount of winning expertise to the team, and I have no doubt that they will help take the team to the next level in F1.
“We already have a very strong and hugely experienced group at the team and bringing onboard highly-skilled individuals like Tim, Guillaume and Alan will boost our capability and help us meet the highest technical standards at Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, both at the factory and at the track.”
Red Bull announced the rebranding of its second team last year and said it was “reborn with an expanded mission to battle for the sport’s biggest prizes.”
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MichaelN
29th January 2024, 16:45
This business of going in and out of the FIA for a year or two and back into F1 teams is not a good look. A revolving door of having a peak inside the technical details of all competitors only to then jump ship is in rather poor taste.
Not sure why hiring Alan Permane is considered a ‘coup’, as the teams he worked for didn’t really achieve anything of note; a solid season for ‘Lotus’ in 2012 excepted.
Red Bull seems to be staffing their test team with a lot of people who have parted ways with their previous employers on less than stellar terms. So they certainly have experience, but perhaps not the kind that translates to success.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
29th January 2024, 18:54
Yeah, it’s poacher turned gamekeeper and back again. Perfectly within the rules but smells a bit.
Tristan
29th January 2024, 23:39
Great analogy!
paulsf1fix
29th January 2024, 21:49
He is also credited for winning titles for Benetton and Renault
MichaelN
30th January 2024, 10:31
He was 28 and in a very junior position when Benetton won the 1995 title.
I’m sure he learned a lot there, but his role was rather small.
When he was promoted to junior race engineer, he had the misfortune of that happening just as Schumacher, Byrne and then later Brawn left for Ferrari.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
29th January 2024, 16:46
Quite a line-up, frankly!
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
29th January 2024, 17:06
Staff rotation is a similar as for drivers, the average age seems to continue going up.
I’m surprised how much experience is valued despite the risk to miss on the disruptive idea that could create a leap.
Maybe explains why the pecking order hasn’t seen many changes lately.
MichaelN
29th January 2024, 20:49
If there was a disruptive idea to be found, it seems fair to say it would have been spotted by now.
There just isn’t room for that in modern F1 due to how tightly regulated it all is; and pretty much all the novel ideas in the last, say 20 to 30 years, were the result of the regulations failing to account for a known concept being integrated into an F1 car.
slowmo (@slowmo)
29th January 2024, 23:41
DAS, whatever Ferrari were doing with their PU, oil burning, Coanda exhausts, hot/cold blowing diffuser, mass dampers. Many of those were not known concepts. I guess the key is those innovations were in spite of the rules though.
Tristan
29th January 2024, 23:46
Thing is, this guy now knows exactly where the FIA can’t afford to look, ie. where enforcement is not keeping up with those tight regulations. And we absolutely know they can’t afford to look everywhere.
I have no doubt there are novel ideas being developed on F1 cars, but we’ll never hear of any of them. We didn’t even get the details of Ferrari’s battery tech or smelly oil or whatever it was. I can’t believe all the top teams don’t have at least something that’s giving them an edge.
BamBoomBots
30th January 2024, 8:01
Well, I do have an engineering background, and I’ll tell you my two cents on that Ferrari engine in 2019:
There have been reports on the cabling from the MGU-H to the battery being very close to the fuel flow meter, and teams were rightfully suspicious about that. High currents flow through that cable, and what does current flowing through a conductor do? It creates a magnetic field.
Now the fuel flow sensor the FIA uses, is not the standard rotating flow meter for both packaging, durability and precision reasons. It uses ultrasone transducers that measure fuel flow through the doppler principle. And transducers are susceptible to magnetic fields.
I suspect the battery split was required in order to modulate the flow of the current through the cabling in such a way that the readings of the fuel flow sensor seemed correct, whereas the actual flow rate exceeded the regulatory limit. Is this against the rules? Well, actually not. It was worded in such a way that ‘fuel flow readings in that sensor may never exceed X’. And they never did, apparently. Is it against the spirit of the rules? Absolutely.
That’s the kind of deviously clever engineering and interpretation you’re up against as the FIA. It made sense that it was resolved the way that it was, but anyone involved understood this was cheating. I at least hope that this was a new insight and I would not be too sure about things never ever surfacing to the public. There’s smart people outside of F1 too.
slowmo (@slowmo)
30th January 2024, 8:54
Indeed, you only have to look at the Renault Mass Damper which was on the car for a year before the FIA took issue with it. Most F1 teams simply run their grey area or naughty devices without telling the FIA and then wait for it to be found out or for a competitor to spot what they’re doing and ask for a clarification from the FIA. Mercedes with DAS were very unusual in the fact they cleared the design with the FIA prior to using it.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
29th January 2024, 21:07
I’ve always seen the second Red Bull team as a bit of a joke under the old leadership. It seems like they’re really attempting to shake things up and hire the right people this time. It doesn’t guarantee them success but I will be very interested if they start making big steps forward over the coming seasons.
macaque (@macaque)
31st January 2024, 2:51
The title is wrong. It should be “Visa Cash app RB announces […]”.
Ok, no one likes the name, but you used Alfa Romeo the last few years and we’ve been using Red Bull. The car companies are also brand names, so in that respect it doesn’t make it all that different if you say Mercedes or Ferrari or Red Bull or Stake.
When drivers and other team members talk about the team you know they will go through the whole name. When you interview them, will you not quote them properly?
Seems a bit unprofessional to me.