Red Bull unveils RB3 (+pictures)

As soon as Mark Webber signed his contract to race for us this year, the technical team at Milton Keynes was told it had to have the RB3 car ready for 26 January. Why? Because its Australia Day today! Actually that’s complete nonsense but you’d be surprised at how many of the media thought this was the reason that our newest driver was at the wheel of RB3 for its official debut at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona today.

In fact, off the record, David Coulthard actually had the honour of getting our 2007 challenger moving, when he completed a handful of shakedown laps on Wednesday. The car ran in plain blue colours and so our stunning new livery was not revealed until this morning’s photo shoot in a slightly dark and gloomy - and very cold - Barcelona pit lane.

The launch was a low-key affair, at least by Red Bull Racing standards, but we did have at least one unusual twist to the day. A mysterious and beautiful girl was hanging around the garage, wearing a black beret, huge dark glasses and a floor length raincoat. Who was this strange spy? She was giving out brown envelopes stamped with the word “Confidential,” sneaking up to the journalists and handing it over without saying a word. The envelope actually contained the press kit, which you can read elsewhere on this site, produced to look as though the documents had been spy-photographed on Adrian Newey’s drawing board. One interesting aside: in a recent interview, Newey revealed he does still use a real drawing board. “I reckon I might be the last dinosaur in the sport,” he joked, given that all F1 design work these days is done on computer.

At the time of writing, early on Friday morning, Mark Webber had completed the day’s first installation lap. Later today on interviews and more news from the launch of Red Bull Racing’s RB3 will follow.

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