New RB8 will define team's dynasty claim

Dynasty pending. And no Joan Collins in sight. All breakthrough musicians have to face up to the 'difficult second album', the acid test as to whether they are a one-trick flash in the pan or an artist with some sort of longevity within them, capable of ranking up amongst the greats of their genre. Or possibly neither. But in F1, the real acid test is the slightly-clunkier 'difficult third consecutive title'. Which is the prize that the new, vent-covered Red Bull RB8 Renault will be aiming to secure this year.

Last year, Sebastian Vettel secured the team their second consecutive drivers title, and his own place in some exalted Formula One history. The list of back-to-back champions he had joined was enough to bring tears to the German's eyes when the BBC showed him the names of his fellow record holders in the form of a typically moving Beeb montage, and well he might have felt a bit emotional.

But to add a third consecutive title to that record in 2012 will see Vettel tread into almost unheralded ground, the sort where only the pinnacle of F1's prize-grabbers have so far managed to tread. Throughout the 60-odd years that Formula One has been bowling around for, only two drivers have ever managed such a feat. And the two that have - Fangio and Schumacher - are as peerless a pair of names as you could hope to join.

Similarly, Red Bull's second consecutive constructors championship triumph in 2011 was, while hugely impressive, not all that uncommon. In fact, only three times in the last 32 years has a team failed to score at least two constructors titles on the bounce (Benetton in 1995, McLaren in 1998 and Brawn GP in 2009 if you're keeping score at home). But check for three consecutive wins, and the records only show four in the sport's history: Ferrari (1975-77), McLaren (1988-1991), Williams (1992-1994) and Ferrari again (1999-2004).

So, while there is no doubt that Red Bull's successes in 2010 and 2011 have set them up as one of F1's true big teams for the foreseeable future, success or failure in 2012 still has plenty riding on it in terms of how history will treat the current run of RBR success. As sporting dynasties go, victory in 2012 would ensure that the Vettel/Newey/Red Bull triumvirate are remembered up there with the best of them.

So, no pressure on the new Red Bull RB8 then. Just a place in history to secure, no biggie. The car was finally unveiled on Monday, and appears to have all the hallmarks of an Adrian Newey design, a pleasing (or worrying, depending on which side of the fence you're staring at it from) mix of innovation and consistency.

In theory, there is little to suggest that the new RB8 won't begin the season as the class of the field, and sweep all before it in the hands of Vettel once again. Although there have been significant rule changes in some areas (the ban on blown diffusers being the main one), they will affect their rivals as much as they will Red Bull, possibly more in the case of McLaren. And with the team already enjoying a performance advantage over the field from last year, it would take something significant for that difference to be easily eroded.

That is certainly why the RB8 as it looked at today's launch looked like such an obvious evolution of last year's car, rather than one born of Adrian Newey ripping up his sketch pad and starting again. In many ways, it almost looks like an RB7 with an uggo-spec 2012 nose added on. Which may not be far from the truth. "We've kept more or less the same chassis shape," Newey said after the launch, "But had to drop the nose."

Still, this is Adrian Newey and this is a Neweymobile. So even when nothing much changes rule-wise, there still has to be some sign of innovation, and some little gimmick that nobody else seems to have thought of. On the launch-spec RB8, this Neweyvation (as it probably won't be called) was noticeable in the car's ungainly step on the nose.

The RB8 features what appears to be a couple of tiny vents in the step of the nose, something that has so far been absent from the platypus designs of other teams, who all launched with featureless steps. The purpose of these vents will not be the subject of plenty of speculation throughout the grid. They may be designed to funnel air somewhere clever, they may be part of a workaround for the ban on exhaust-sourced air for a blown diffuser, they may be a simple method of keeping a driver's crotch cool, or they may be a launch-spec red herring that will never be raced. The debate will be raging all around Jerez.

What will be interesting to see in terms of the frontrunning teams is who starts copying who first. All three appear to have had slightly different eureka moments over the new nose height restrictions, with McLaren strikingly refusing to produce an ugly stepped design, Ferrari going extreme with a dramatically large step and a super-narrow end to their own nose, with Red Bull opting for something stepped but still elegant. While 2012's grid will not be a pretty one, it has at least opened up a new avenue for innovation.

For Red Bull, the road to that difficult third consecutive title starts here. And over the rest of the pre-season we'll start to find out just how difficult that bid for history might be. "Obviously we hope our car is better than all the others but it will be difficult, and I think the cars will be fairly similar." Vettel offered after the RB8 launch, downplaying the hopes/fears of a repeat of 2011's evisceration.

That is certainly what the average neutral F1 fan will be hoping for come Melbourne next month, but it remains to see what the RB8 has to say about that.

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this