Red Bull RB6

[i70q7m7ghw]

It's pretty obvious he cracked it on a bump or a curb. It's a nice idea but it's not going to work. Maybe in the wind tunnel it's great, but it's not practical for a race.

[Fil]

whatever do you mean by not practical?

if an exhaust cracks, it is through excess vibration or heat, and usually due to manufacturing error or too thin material.

[i70q7m7ghw]

whatever do you mean by not practical?

if an exhaust cracks, it is through excess vibration or heat, and usually due to manufacturing error or too thin material.

It's on the floor, if the driver hits a bump and slaps the floor on track there is a much higher risk of damaging the exhaust.

[Jersey Tom]

whatever do you mean by not practical?

if an exhaust cracks, it is through excess vibration or heat, and usually due to manufacturing error or too thin material.

It's on the floor, if the driver hits a bump and slaps the floor on track there is a much higher risk of damaging the exhaust.

You don't even know if it WAS the exhaust that cracked. Was a theory put out my commentators. Could be a variety of things. Edit - Or was this confirmed on team radio?

And even if it was, we don't know what the failure mode was, or cause of failure.

Bit early to be going off about 'impractical' design or what have you.

[Fil]

It's on the floor, if the driver hits a bump and slaps the floor on track there is a much higher risk of damaging the exhaust.

ah, i see what you're thinking. the exhaust sits lower, but not on the floor..

see here for a good angle of how it is located.

curbs & bumps are no more dangerous to this setup than any other F1 car's exhaust design.

[sunny1304]

I hope RB6 is not going to be a MP4-20.


Congratulation for FERRARI =D> =D> =D> =D>

[gary1203]

whatever do you mean by not practical?

if an exhaust cracks, it is through excess vibration or heat, and usually due to manufacturing error or too thin material.

It's on the floor, if the driver hits a bump and slaps the floor on track there is a much higher risk of damaging the exhaust.

You don't even know if it WAS the exhaust that cracked. Was a theory put out my commentators. Could be a variety of things. Edit - Or was this confirmed on team radio?

And even if it was, we don't know what the failure mode was, or cause of failure.

Bit early to be going off about 'impractical' design or what have you.

it was the exhaust
before hamilton passed him, vettel asked the team if there is anything they can do to fix it and they tell him it's mechanical and talks about something about the exhaust

[gridwalker]

Cracked exhaust was definitely confirmed over the team radio ...

Fast but fragile : typical post-99 Newey design ...

[segedunum]

Well, the reliability issues duly appeared...... I half expected to see something happen earlier actually.

They need to get that exhaust system on a serious testbed and bang heads with Renault, but it's the way forward. It's lost them a race today but it'll win them a few as it's something no one else is even close to having. At least they seem to have saved the engine, but it'll be interesting to see if it really is their exhaust system as a whole or if something from Renault has gone. If it was the exhaust system as a whole that had gone then I would have expected to see the rear of that Red Bull completely melt. The fact that it didn't, and that Newey was shaking his head, might point somewhere else.

They were also seriously sandbagging early on in the race and far too conservative. I don't know if they were terrified of the tyres or something, but Vettel was seemingly able to pull out half a second whenever he felt like it in that middle sector and they were just keen to maintain an even gap to Ferrari. That was a mistake.

I wouldn't get too excited. Red Bull still have a lot to do with the pace of the car during the race, need to understand their tyres better and how they can push them (as do all the teams) and need to nail down the systems they have on that car. They still have by far and away the fastest package out there and at nineteen races time is on their side - unless they run out of engines!

[Mysticf1]

Vettel definitly appeared to be managing the gap... Alonso did admit to being unable to follow the RBR on soft tyres so i think theres alot more pace than was shown.

Lets not forget the Ferraris were not perfect either, both cars suffering from overheating with Massa having to slow in the later stages to conserve fuel and aid cooling.

Redbull is definitely the car to beat IMO at this stage.

[manchild]

Dirty luscious Liz

Such things happen. I'm not at all worried about rest of the season. Don't forget that Ferrari had problems at both engines and replaced them. So, cut those points they've scored in half. Sooner or later they'll require a change that will bring them penalty. BTW, Ferrari's rears finished in horrible condition, 5 more laps and they'd fell apart.

So, Vettel's Dacia (RBR - Romanian Built Renault) is definitely the car to beat.

[Poleman]

Redbull is definitely the car to beat IMO at this stage.

+1...Too bad it gets beaten by itself... =D>

[ringo]

The RB6 has so much speed, they should be able to add some robustness for a small price; maybe the exhaust should be made a little thicker. I am sure they wont lose much speed seeing as though it wont affect ballast placement much since it's in the middle and so low to the ground.
This car is a beast though, the pace was real on both high and low fuel. The stability and grip looks great as well. Newey may have done a deal with the devil to create this double edged sword called the RB6, but he had to pay the price with reliability.

All in all, this is a small problem which can be fixed. The rest of the car was working very well. Tyre wear was ok too, since Vettel was at the front in clean air.
I am not so sure about Webber in the back. He seemed to be pretty slow , but we have to wait till the lap charts for the drivers come up before we make an assessment.

Easy come easy go for Vettel, i feel it for him, but he cant expect to just run away like that and win races and everything is honky dory. There has to be a balance.
First race out of 19 anyway and he bagged 12 points.

[Mysticf1]

It appeared to me that Webber had the pace but every time he got within that infamous 1sec / dirty air zone behind Schu and Button he couldnt do anything...then his tyres would overheat and he'd drop back for a lap or so then have another crack.

[segedunum]

Hmmmmm, Webber. Qualified badly, got himself bogged down behind other cars and Red Bull didn't time the strategy right to give themselves a chance of doing any leapfrogging. Improvements are sorely needed at Australia. That was poor.