After a quiet spell designed to help people's retinas recover, the latest car launch took place today, and saw the RB5 break cover at the Jerez circuit ahead of this week's test session at the track. Readers of a nervous disposition, look away now.
The Adrian Newey-penned design is very much in keeping with the 2009-era bastard-spec of F1 machine, with the chilling sight of the low front wing and high, narrow rear wing enough to frighten small children. Newey's design, though, sees some interesting additions to the generic shape seen in other new cars, and while they push the look from "ugly" right in to "the goggles, they do nothing" territory, they at least offer something different to moan about in these news pieces.
The nose section is almost comically high off the ground, as well as being remarkably narrow, like a 1999-spec Arrows, while raised ridges run down each side of the nose towards the cockpit, making it look like the middle of the car has sunk down like a flan in a cupboard.
Elsewhere, costs have seemingly been saved at the rear of the car, as the hunched airbox and tapered sidepods vanish into nothingness, making it look a bit like the team just ran out of carbon fibre.
Despite the looks, the team are confident that the Renault-powered machine will help the midfielders move forward in 2009.
"We should not forget they [the designers] designed a car that won a grand prix in 2008, in the hands of Sebastian Vettel and Scuderia Toro Rosso," Christian Horner blabbed to the press, "There is no reason to believe we cannot do that again with these new rules." He added, using the word "we" instead of "they" by mistake.
The team will get a feel as to whether this blind hope will transform into pre-season promise when the car is put through it's paces around Jerez over the next few days. New driver Sebastian Vettel will kick things off today, while Mark Webber will put his best foot forward on Wednesday, as he returns to the cockpit following his injury lay-off.
With Red Bull joining the other six teams to have launched their cars already, and TAFKAHonda's participation still up in the air, the remaining launches for Toro Rosso and Force India are scheduled for early March. Though we can probably have a guess as to what the Toro Rosso will look like already.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
