Can Red Bull be copied in 2010?

[marcush.]

poor HRT ..they have to reverse engineer the Dallara now.I think willis has already given up to find something in this to learn..but then who knows?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

We have seen time and time again when things get copied they do not always work. One of the biggest problems of trying to reverse engineer an F1 development is that the science is never truly understood. It is not always possible to get to an endpoint without making many wrong turns/failures with each failure contributing to the end-product.

I would say no. It is not possible to copy the RBR car. You may end up with something that looks like the RBR but it won't perform like it.

If I had a wind tunnel with 80 people working on scale models, the first thing I would be doing is to model the exhaust and suspension on the RB6 to my current car.
In a series where there are very subtle diffences, how can you over look those two concepts which are different to any other?

Red bull are amazingly fast in mid to highspeed corners, this tells you all yo need to know.
Slam that gubbins on the back of your motor and make it work.

Yes it will need refining, the question is how long does it take if its at all worthwhile????

[marcush.]

If i´m correct the red bull has had its strengths in 2009 in those areas ,but did not sport a low exhaust...

what i do remember of 2010 winter testing is the frequent cautionary gearbox removals red Bull undertook.. an indication of their secret weapon housed in the gearbox housing in need of tuning ?

[ringo]

They can be copied easily. But attention has to be taken off the 2011 cars to do that.
Exhaust blown diffusers aren't anything new. The exhaust can pass through a push rod suspension as well; i think.

Other than the exhaust and engine cover, it would be difficult to get the general relationship with the suspension and the aerodynamics just like the redbull. Copying is a good way to jump the R&D steps in a design, and if t does not equate to redbull level of performance at least it will bring the teams very close.


If an F1 car basically looks like this. New pipes, holed diffuser and floor, is not such a big deal. It's like a Mr. Potato head; just slap on the new parts, as long as the show an improvement on the CAD. CAD has greatly improved the art of reverse engineering, enginners don't hope for the best when they copy a part, because they have done the tests to validate the improvements.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ringo,
If so can we expect an exhaust driven diffuser from the top teams in the next 3-4 races?
Who of the top teams stand to benefit the most from this design?

Marcush, what could be housed by the gearbox that gives them this advantage?

[marcush.]

the dampers and springs?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Is this relating to the "trick suspension" that can level itself during qualifying and race?
How can the dampers and spring do this with programming or ratchets?

At the end of 2009, you are right, they were the fastest team even with out exhaust diffuser.
And their ability to ride bumps is the best in the pitlane. So what I wonder are they hiding!

This does not explain their high speed cornering abilties though!

[WhiteBlue]

I would be very surprised if we would not see copies of Red Bull rear end during this season. The packaging is obviously so advantageous that rivals will have little choice but to go for it. Perhaps not all of them will do it this year but some will try, IMO.

The tricky part is getting the design right for adjustability of the dampers. They are located somewhere deep under other components and access for setup changes will be a challenge.

[SoliRossi]

the big question is which team may have still the recources to do a full analysis of the RB6 concepts with windtunnel/cfd to get an idea what the hell is going on there.
With the curiously big time advantage in Q3 only and on race day at least ferrari and macs creeping closer ,the decision to just drop your ideas and follow Redbull is not an easy one...as one can see with toro rosso the details must be quite subtle that do the trick..

Newey stated more than once that he decided on pullrod assuming ddd would not be feasible and he would not have chosen this solution if he knew before.
For this season they stuck to it because they learned a lot in 2009 about the advantages of pullrod and with ddd banned for 2011 it will be a real benefit...
so a move towards pullrod rear suspension could be a good strategical plan for teams,starting now compromising their season wich is lost anyways but building
knowledge for 2011

the highlighted point above is something that seems to be widley accepted, most major sites and reporters claim the same, basically that the red bull has said advantage mainly/only in quali. I dont tend to agree.

Q3 is the only time you see the cars on the limit, the races are no longer driven in such a fashion. The reason the RB6 seems to come back to the pack in pace terms on race day is purley down to the drivers controlling the race/protecting the car and tyres. There is little need for them to be going flat out as the quickest way flag to flag has to involve an element of looking after the components of the car and prolonging the tyre life. I am very confident that if the rb6 was pushed to the limit it could comforatably pull away from the Macca and Ferrari, I suppose Mark managed that in the last 2 races anyhow.

So i in no was prescribe to the idea that the rb6 is only stronger in quali.

The other interesting point is that the rb6 is basically an optimised rb5, and it was widley accepted by lots of very smart people that we would see the rb6 revert to push rod in order to maximise the ddd. All the teams seemed to think this as well, then low and behold they roll out pull rod rear end. There was much scoffing, even claims that they had compramised its design and relyed on the rb5 heritage to be fast but they were going to be out developed by the other teams who had a wider window of ddd development avaliable to them due to the rear end set up etc...

Basically the rb6 was again an out of the box design, its completly different than anything else out there and as to if other teams can copy it, well the answer has to be a resounding NO.

Take a look at the f-duct, even us simpeltons understand how it works, and RBR were aware of it prior to the start of race 1, we are months down the track and they are yet to use it. So if such a simple bit of kit takes so long to get on track imagine the time frame required to basically make a b spec car that is a complete different direction to your a spec car. There is no way that i can see it possibly done without langushing around the rear of the pack.

The other scary idea is that pull rod rear suspension was seemingly used in the rb5 without the ddd in mind. So its safe to assume that its the best solution for a non ddd car, which will be what the 2011 cars are going to be like. So next year there will have to be a whole grid of rb6 clones with rear wing endplates going all the way to the bottom of the single diffuser, like the launch spec rb5.

[autogyro]

Of course we may see a completely new suspension system next year.
Hrmph

[Fil]

Well if it was the DDD that caused packaging issues for Red Bull's Suspension layout in 2009, surely the removal of it for 2011 will provide even bigger an advantage in keeping the same Push Rod setup..

[marcush.]

Well if it was the DDD that caused packaging issues for Red Bull's Suspension layout in 2009, surely the removal of it for 2011 will provide even bigger an advantage in keeping the same Push Rod setup..

thats why newey stuck to it methinks

[D'Leh]

What really fascinates me is, that people are discussing many possibilities but nobody really has a clue what makes the RB6 so fast. Blown diffusors, pullrods, V-nose, DDD... Nothing of it is new really. And you lot can bet your steadiness the other teams ran all this through their CFDs already. They still have no idea what's going on. The gap was huge in Spain and Monaco. We just couldn't see it because Webber cruised home and behind him weird stuff was happening (brakes failing, cars crashing, safety cars deployed...)

I can't wait when, in a couple of years, Newey will give us some inside to truly understand it.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I dont think we will be waiting 2 years.
Honestly I see Red Bulls advantage eroded by the end of the season. The simple reason is they are doing somthing different to other teams, and all it takes is one of the other 11 teams to get it right and the flood gates will open.

The low exhaust, blowing the diffuser. The pullrod suspension. And what ever is going on in that gearbox area that Marcush politley pointed out to me.

All these things will make a huge difference. So even if individually they add 0.150 seconds each. Together they all add around half a second. On top of this the base of the Red Bull is very good as we saw at the back end of last year.

And while I smirked when Mclaren said they could overhaul Red bull and soon, they wont be doing it on their own. By that I mean other teams updates that work will also be studied and added to the MP4/25.

But by the time its all within a whisker, the damage will already have been done. Unless Red Bulls iffy reliabilty returns [-o<

[autogyro]

Nope.
The others cannot change their cars enough to match the RB. Their designs are to fixed in the 'wrong' direction.
Next year maybe but that will require a new design and it depends where the chief designers start their designs from. (Nose, undertray, gearbox, kers) you can go on and on. The first priority sets the direction and that alters the gestation.

Adrian is a true genius in one main thing. He chooses that one correct start point and lives the design up from that. His upgrades are simply the logical and pre planned continuation of this process.