The Red Bull RB7
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Throughout 2011 Formula One season,I closely watched the Red Bull formula one car and it’s dominance on the track. And one thing that came clear to me,is that the car was increadably stable and driveable,compairing to F15O or Mp4/24. Only thing that Seb had to to was drive it stable. In Qualy he could squeeze those tenths because the car handled so well. Here’s a a lap of the Japanese GP with Vettel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLKADQ2tf5I
I wanted to know your toughts and obsarvations that you could share.
What do you think of the car tehnicaly.The Diffuser and aero works really well in pushing the car to the ground..
The car also seems to have an ultra-low centre of gravity, that is evenly distributed to the forward and rear.. The car is neutral, so doesn’t break into Understeer or Oversteer (while the F150 and MP4/24 does)@thejudge – That’s probably the intention. The minute someone works out how weight distribution is managed is the minute that that someone can start adapting their own version of it.
Some say a big part of the speed is the front wing,but personaly I think that the floor and the angle of the car created a lot of downforce. For me ,it seemed like the cars rear end was a bit higher than other cars. That made the front ending of the floor be a little closer to the ground,creating an airflow and making the difusser work.
Small point, this year’s McLaren was the MP4-26…MP4-24 was the dog they produced for the 09 season.
As you were.
Are we discussing the RB7, or RB8? The RB8 is the 2012 car.
In another note – the chassis in itself is very good. I don’t agree with @thejudge‘s assessment that it was very stable. If you watch for example Vettel’s Singapore pole lap. The way that he managed the front tyres was beautiful. It had understeer just about all the way through Sector 1; and the car was alive in Sector 2; and finally he had mild oversteer through Sector 3. What you could see if you watch closely enough is the way he drove Sector 3 in Singapore. He would break the rear end on turn-in so that the car changed direction immensely quick; so that it was already pointing at the apex before getting near it; allowing him to get on the throttle very very early. It’s a microcosm of the way he’s driven qualifying the whole year, really. A lot of the reason for his qualifying speed has in fact been entry instability rather than stability.
Also; don’t forget that out of the top cars this year; the McLaren had the strongest front end. In super tight hairpins; only the two McLarens were able to really get close to the apex, especially in qualifying. That’s helped them in long; slow corners too; such as Rivage and the hairpin at the bottom of the hill at Nurburgring. You could see that others were washing out over the front and couldn’t hug the apex. Some even had to convert their line onto a double apex line; while the McLarens just stuck to the kerb.
@raymondu999 I agree. RB provided a Stable(ish) Car close to the pace at any track. Vettel brought his A-Game and was able to get the car fastest around the circuit.. Whether it be breaking the back and rotating on entry kart-style (like you said), riding the throttle midcorner to help with oversteer or just plain hustling the car in and out.. Vettel really unlocked the car all season.
@thejudge i’m fairly certain the having the rear of the car softer and higher than the other cars helped with the low-speed corners as well. Vettel (or Webber, he wasn’t too bad!) was able to use the throttle to raise and lower the rear-end in order to get the car around the track. On entry he would get off the throttle to raise the engine/rear-end and rotate the car, then get back on the throttle (even if only slightly) mid-corner pushing the engine/rear-end down causing the car to grip and potentially understeer away..
@raymondu999 but wouldn’t the things you mentioned ( attacking the corners before them) degradete the tyres more?
You’re saying that they actualy used the understeer to favour them?@thejudge no no. What I meant was, with the immensely technical, and very long lap in Singapore, Vettel underheated his tyres for the start of his lap. If he had started his lap with tyres that were on song, at the end of the lap the car would be too ragged and have too little rear stability. Looking at the tyres in 2011, they degraded, but didn’t grain. Only the Mercedes in Monaco managed that! Sliding would cause graining, but not degradation.
In fact, because Vettel was so readily sliding the rear through the entries, what happened was that the loads acted on the tyres in only a very short span of time. If he took the corner normally, then the lateral (sideways) load would be acting for a whole lot longer, causing further degradation.
You could see in Vettel’s Melbourne lap that Vettel was almost using too much throttle on purpose to help rotate the car quicker, especially through the last corner. If you want more examples of Vettel using the rear as such, look at the Nouvelle chicane on his Monaco pole lap, and the T6/7 chicane from his Hungary 2010 pole lap
@iamsa8 I don’t think they did that actually- the rake seemed to be pretty static to me. Otherwise you’d be missing the rake when it benefitted you the most (fast sweeping corners)
Sorry to be pedantic but it was the RB7, and the MP4-26 :p.
Anywho I think by this stage of the season Vettel was so confident and only needing 1 point to take the title gives a driver that little edge over everyone else. It is true that the car just seems to handle beautifully and the car seems to go exactly where you want it. I think this has always been the case with Red Bull’s last three cars and Suzuka is a great place to show this. The esses are the best place to see this as he makes it look so effortless. If you look at how Hamilton gets his quick quali laps in the MP4-26 then there is a lot more action going on at the wheel. Correcting oversteer and understeer. What would be great is to see his lap from this session but I couldn’t find it.
What strikes me the most about the car is the fact DRS can be left open around 130R without a lift. Now that is some mega downforce and shows that the rear wing only provides a small amount of it (relatively).
Also Vettel seems to be the king of Suzuka so that probably means a lot to why it looks so good.
@smifaye even Liuzzi was opening DRS through 130R… Ironically, the only car that didn’t, was the McLaren
What seems to be the case though is that while the chassis itself is better on the Red Bull, the McLaren is better at feeding its rear wing. As such, as they go to a higher downforce circuit, the McLaren goes better, such as Suzuka, Hungary.
Euhm, I have my concerns in here. More and more forums are talking about this, and actually, if Martin Whitemarsh or Stafano goes onto the internet and search for these sorts of things, then he finds these kinde of threads which means we’re discussing it, and if someone with a better mind then newey says that you should change the car at some points, then everyone sees that comment on the internet. You know what I’m saying?
Anyway, it could be a combination of both, vettel beinga talented and unique expert at qualy and the car being so stable. I think the car has a lil’ stability because seb drove half of the brazillian lap with DRS on.
Fact is that he also knows how the car works and that he knows how to handle it AND take it onto the limit as well. And also, seb has that unique ability to always pic the right setup between 100ths of others just like schumacher had, just like Alonso had, just like senna had, and just like, whomever is a legend, had…
@phil9079 I’ve never seen nor heard anything that stands out based on Vettel’s car setup skills. He does at times, but not consistently. I mean he’s good at setting up, but I have yet to see any signs of outstanding setup skills. There are times when he still takes Webber’s setup when he himself is unable to find a sweet spot. The same applies the other way around too, mind. Webber also takes Vettel’s setup at times.
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