Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been dominating the Formula 1 grid for the past 2 years. It was announced that they will be starting construction on a new Wind Tunnel in their Milton Keynes factory soon. However, recent reports suggest that they have suspended the plan for now.
Wind Tunnels have been playing an important role in developing a Formula 1 car for a long time. It is common to the F1 community that a Formula 1 car is an inverted airplane. While Airplanes are more focused on getting the machine off the ground, F1 cars are more focused on keeping the machine on the ground.
In order to keep the car on the ground, a lot of downforce has to be generated. To test downforce and airflow levels, F1 teams use the wind tunnel and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The CFD uses technology to predict the airflow through the car at high speeds. The Wind Tunnel on the other hand is more practical as a smaller version of the car is used to test different upgrades and setups.
⚠️ | Red Bull’s new wind tunnel facility planning application withdrawal is due to Milton Keynes’ major ongoing developments.
A new location has been elected and new paperwork will be submitted again for approval. The team believes the slight delay will not have a major impact… pic.twitter.com/sQhUMhMszM
— RBR News 🇳🇱🇲🇽 (@redbulletin) October 24, 2023
Teams like Mercedes and Ferrari already have Wind Tunnels at their factory. Other teams like McLaren and Aston Martin will also be having one to use in their factory soon. Red Bull has been in F1 since the 2005 season. Although they have had a number of successful seasons in the sport with Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, they don’t have their own wind tunnel.
While it was announced that they would start construction for a new Wind Tunnel soon, it has been reported that the construction has now withdrawn their planning application for the new wind tunnel. This means that they will not be able to use the wind tunnel to develop their 2025 car at least.
Will this affect Adrian Newey’s capability to design a contender for Max Verstappen?
Since their inception, Red Bull has been using the wind tunnel at Twinwoods. This Wind Tunnel is also used to design and test parts for airplanes. Red Bull’s initial plans to start construction for a new wind tunnel were announced in 2022. At the time, Adrian Newey who is commonly known to be the mastermind of the Red Bull cars was apparently against it. But will this affect Max Verstappen’s chances of winning 5 consecutive Championships?
“It just takes too long for us to ramp up to the desired wind speed,” Newey was quoted as saying at the time. “And that steals significantly relevant wind tunnel time that we’re actually entitled to. I would keep everything full CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] development. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough votes for that, although it would be much more sustainable. The usual suspects are against it.”
Let him cook pic.twitter.com/kgdYS48EMT
— V3RSTAPPEN Enjoyer (@Sub2seconds) October 24, 2023
Adrian Newey suggests that the team focuses more on CFD than Wind Tunnel. He has enough confidence in his capability to understand the aerodynamics of the car with CFD and track testing. While a number of designers use computers to design car parts for efficiency, Newey still uses the old-fashioned pen and paper. So far, we have not seen him make any major mistakes in designing Red Bull’s cars.
It is possible that Adrian Newey convinced the Red Bull management and board to abandon the plans for the new Wind Tunnel. If this decision was strategic, we may not see Red Bull lose pace in the coming seasons. Do you think Red Bull will lose pace on developments or will Adrian Newey’s brilliance make up for it? Post your answers in the comment section below.