Q & A with Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey: It has been a long time since we had such a big rule change, so it's a nervous time because it's the opportunity to do something different and there's always the possibility that other will think of something that you haven't. It's been a very busy period, the busiest time I've had in F1 probably since my first year at McLaren because there has been so much to do in a very short space of time. We really got going last April and it has been flat out ever since.

Q. What has been the biggest challenge in terms of the concept of the car?

AN: Weight distribution is certainly a challenge, particularly with KERS. On the one hand it's clear that with the slick tyres you need to get a bit more weight on the front axle. On the other hand, KERS is putting more weight on the rear. And you don't have very much movable ballast at all. Whereas last year people were putting ballast in front wings and in the front of the tea tray, with KERS that isn't really possible. There just isn't enough left over.

Q. How much of the ballast does it use up? Half?

AN: Well, more than half, there's not much left. It depends on your driver weight, so for someone like Mark on the taller and heavier end of the scale, it makes it more difficult for him.

Q. In terms of the trade-off between those parameters, how did you do that?

AN: All that you can really do is move the car through its wheelbase a little but. But there tends to be an aerodynamic penalty for that so it's a question of how far you go. The real answer is to save as much weight at the back end of the car as you can. That's about time and money because rear-end weight saving can become a very expensive business.

Q. Has the extra time you've had before launching helped?

AN: Not relative to our rivals. We looked at the photos of our rivals but we haven't had time to study any of the routes that we've taken because we've been too flat out pursuing our own routes. This has obviously given us a little bit longer in design to design things and to try and make up for the fact that we are a somewhat smaller team.

We certainly run a lot less wind tunnel than other people which has come out recently with some of the discussion on wind tunnel limitations so we've tried to use the time to some extent to make up for slightly smaller resources.

Q. How confident are you that the OWG (Overtaking Working Group) changes will have made a difference?

AN: I don't know. The most obvious point is that if you have a regulation change as big as this, it is probably that the split from pole to the back of the grid is going to be bigger than it was last year. Last year it was characterised by a very tight grid. We had four or five different chassis manufacturers winning races - I don't know when the last time that happened was. Maybe you'll get the odd extra overtaking manoeuvre, but this year at any rate the racing is going to be further apart.

Q. How much different is the position of the feet of the driver?

AN: A little bit higher, but it's not hugely higher. I can't remember the number, but it's something like 25mm. Although I don't think it's as much as that. The chassis is V section, so his heels are slightly higher, but it's quite a small amount.

Q. The rear suspension is interesting - it looks like pullrod rear suspension. There is also a lot of detailing on the front wing. Can you elaborate on what you are trying to achieve?

AN: The pullrod is fundamentally different. That's to try and suit the new aero package where we wanted to try and get a very clean flow at the back of the car and the pullrod is part of that solution. The front wing is just the way we evolved it.

Q. Are you surprised no one has come up with a similar solution?

AN: I don't know. There are going to be a variety of different solutions. One of the things that tends to happen when you have a rule change like this is that early on you have to, certainly in our case we don't have the resources to pursue different routes, so we settled on a route and concept for the car that best suited the regulations.

We've pursued that without looking at lots of different ones in parallel. Which combination eventually proves to be the best, history will tell in two or three years time as the cars converge. Through this year, there are going to be significant differences.

Q. You have a good record in rule changes, is having a clean sheet of paper what Red Bull needs?

AN: I enjoy having big regulation changes. It gives you much more of a chance for a clean sheet of paper rather than small evolutions of established things. Whether it plays to Red Bull or not is difficult to say. You can argue it two ways. You can say it opens up a few good ideas that can give a benefit, or you can say it plays to the teams with the biggest resources.

Q. You have a reputations as someone who is very aggressive in his designs. Is this car in that tradition of going all out?

AN: It is quite an aggressive design. It's a design that is quite different to anything that has gone before. Hopefully for good engineering reasons. One of the things is having the discipline to have ideas but making sure that they really do give something rather than simply being different.