Red Bull ahead of schedule with new F1 wind tunnel
The Milton Keynes-based team currently has the oldest wind tunnel on the F1 grid
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images
Red Bull has said it is ahead of its initial schedule with the building of its new Formula 1 wind tunnel.
Red Bull currently uses an outdated wind tunnel compared to its main rivals, with its facilities near Bedford being over 70 years old.
The wind tunnel has been labelled "a Cold War relic" by team boss Christian Horner.
While the team has been continually improving the tunnel in order to keep it up to date, its technical personnel sees it as a limitation in the long term.
F1 teams invest heavily in these facilities; McLaren has used Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne for years since 2010 but can rely on its own state-of-the-art version since the summer of 2023.
Aston Martin also invested in a modern tunnel, which gets a prominent place in its new Silverstone factory.
The Red Bull company has given the green light to build the new wind tunnel at the Red Bull Campus in Milton Keynes, with the work currently in progress and three months ahead of schedule.
Pierre Wache, Technical Director, Red Bull Racing, in the Team Principals Press Conference
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
"With the building work and afterwards all the new machines you never know when it's coming, but we are ahead of the schedule at the moment," Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache told Autosport.
"We are three months ahead of the plans.
"The guys are doing a very good job, but you never know if you get any delays somewhere else. It is a big project."
The new wind tunnel should be operational in 2026, meaning it can be beneficial to Red Bull for its 2027 challenger.
"Or maybe already help us later in the year [2026]," added Wache.
"It is the oldest wind tunnel in the sport. I even discussed it with Jos [Verstappen] the other day, that they already used this tunnel when he was there at Arrows," Wache said.
"It is an old tool that we updated. There is plenty of newer stuff inside, but we have some limitations. We know those limitations and we try to work around them, but that is clearly more difficult when you are looking for a small delta.
"It is why we invest in the new tunnel. We think we can have a benefit from the new one that we don't have with the current model."
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