Red Bull use Brembo brakes on the RB7. The RB5 suffered with brake wear issues in 2009 but Newey says the technology has moved on since then: ‘I think what you’ve seen along the grid is much more sophisticated disc drilling patterns than in 2009. In our own case, we supply our own spec to Brembo, but equally, Brembo has developed its own baseline spec in the intervening years, so their baseline spec is also to a high standard’
strategy, so to claim that you burn excess fuel and blow the floor in order to offset the influence of the KERS and achieve a neutral brake balance seems rather against the whole intent of green technology. The way we’ve been using the exhaust, the effect would be very small.’
GEARBOX EVOLUTION For the first time ever, Red Bull is supplying technology to an outside team (Toro Rosso is owned by Red Bull), its pull-rod transmission being found on the Team Lotus T128. That gearbox is essentially the one used on the single diffuser RB5 and STR04, and the RB7 also leans heavily on the same design. ‘The internals are almost identical to the RB6, but its casing is different, primarily because we are returning to a single diffuser. This raised the question, why is the RB7 gearbox different to the RB5? The answer is just general evolution and packaging and, of course, the fact that
we’ve chosen to put the KERS alongside the main case.’ If the RB7 does have an
Achilles’ heel, it must be its energy recovery, and team radio transmissions during the early race races with the system publicly demonstrated the issues the team was experiencing. ‘At the root of the problem is the fact that we have tried to develop the KERS package ourselves,’ explains Newey. ‘It
is based on the Magneti Marelli system that Renault used in 2009 and which we briefly tested on the RB5 pre-season before electing not to race it. Since then, everybody has gone off in different directions with that system as a basis, including ourselves. Developing KERS just isn’t our strength. We are mechanical engineers, aerodynamicists and vehicle dynamicists, not KERS specialists.
DIGITAL BACKBONE
Adrian Newey’s unusual, anachronistic even,
approach of using a drawing board presents a unique challenge to Red Bull’s design team. ‘Once I’ve done my paper drawings, they then have to be scanned, and then there’s a team of two or three people that have to take those drawings and turn them into solid surface models. Nowadays, a drawing itself is of no use to anybody. Whether
you’re evaluating it in CFD or in a wind tunnel, the manufacturing is in the electronic world. The wind tunnel model and the manufacturing use computer- controlled machinery. The team have got used to me now.’ While Newey still relies on paper and French curves, the rest of his engineers use advanced digital tools to develop concepts. The team has a partnership with Siemens, and uses its
NX software. It also utilises Teamcenter PLM to ensuring accuracy and consistency of models and bills of material. ‘I think it’s the system that the guys here all felt comfortable using,’ adds Newey. ‘We benchmarked various different systems in terms of overall performance and flexibility and how we wanted to use it, and found that it was the one most suited to us.’
September 2011 •
www.racecar-engineering.com 13 ‘Part of the problem is that
we have chosen quite aggressive packaging, putting the batteries alongside the bellhousing at the back of the car, which we’ve felt was good for the overall package of the car. Everybody else now has the batteries at the base of the fuel tank. For a packaging point of view, we felt that ours was a better route. We knew there would be heat issues with our placement of the batteries as
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