Red Bull officially unveiled the car with which they will contest the 2009 world championship on Monday morning. The wraps came off the RB5 at the Jerez circuit in Spain, with drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in attendance.
The team are confident the Renault-powered machine, again designed by Adrian Newey, will allow them to improve on their seventh place in the 2008 standings and perhaps even bring them their maiden win.
The RB5’s design encompasses the wide-ranging regulation changes that have been brought in to cut costs and boost overtaking for the 2009 season, and Newey admitted it has been quite a challenge.
A limping Mark Webber helped unveil the new Red Bull Formula One car that could allow the Australian to step up alongside new team mate Sebastian Vettel as a race winner this season.
Vettel, the 21-year-old German who won the Italian Grand Prix last year with Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso, joined Webber to take the tarpaulin of the new-look RB5 car at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain.
Team boss Christian Horner said 2009 would see Red Bull “benefit from greater stability in terms of how we run the operation, with all our key players in the technical group having been with us for at least two years.
“We should not forget that they designed a car that won a grand prix in 2008, in the hands of Sebastian Vettel and Toro Rosso,” he added in team handout.
“There is no reason to believe we cannot do that again with these new rules.”
“It’s good that we got the car running without any major problems, but it’s much too early to say anything about performance,” Vettel said after a few laps. “Now we are concentrating on checking all the systems, which are very different to those on last year’s car.”
“I thought I’d let Seb do the boring installation laps and the running-in,” Webber said. “Wednesday’s run will be as much a test for me as for the car, as it will be my first go in an F1 car since I broke my leg.”
| 
|