Formula One car development blog

Red Bull have taken their time to thoroughly develop their own F-duct for the RB6, a car which is already a masterpiece. They are the latest top team to introduce it, but it certainly is one of the most interesting system yet seen.

Pictures taken on Friday afternoon show the RB6 with an uncovered F-duct, consisting of two channels through the sharkfin and onto the rear wing. Both channels start in a closed box, seemingly connected to the airbox. From there, the upper channel feeds a... Read more

The constant quest for cleaner airflow around and below the car made Red Bull to adopt a small set of turning vanes under the nose at China to optimize the airflow towards the lower part of the car. The vanes are positioned in between the front wheels, ahead of the wheel axle.

The new turning vanes are similar to Ferrari's items and of course triggered a series of other changes to the car.

The front wing was modified with a new inner flap profile, simplifying its shape. The area whe... Read more

Two weeks ago, in the parc fermé at Bahrain, the Red Bull RB6 was seen to have an extremely high ride height. In fact the car's suspension was holding the car up so high that the rear tyres were in contact with the car's floor, a position that obviously never be useful when running.

After many speculations, it has now been confirmed that Red Bull, and notably also some of the smaller teams' cars have a special ride height control system that allows them to run the cars lower to the ... Read more

One of the aims of last year's aerodynamic regulation changes was to reduce the interest in aerodynamic developing by limiting the possible development areas, including the front wing. The problem with F1 designers and their teams is that they live for every single tenth, and hence rather then stepping back, a regulation change empowers them to look for other solutions.

Red Bull's RB6 front wing for instance is a development of the RB5 front wing. While Newey traditionally designed ... Read more

While Red Bull have chosen a development approach rather than a complete redesign, the list of optimisations on the car is nearly endless. One of the more interesting items is the location of the brake calipers, constructed by Brembo in Red Bull's case.

On both the front and rear wheels, the calipers are positioned at the bottom end of the brake discs, creating the lowest possible centre of gravity for the wheels. While Honda have come close to this in 2006, most teams have compromi... Read more