Red Bull Racing have again decided to miss the opening pre-season test at Valencia at the start of next month. The team will miss the 1-3 February event because they say they need more time in the wind tunnel, to allow Adrian Newey and the other designers to perfect the RB6.
Team principal Christian Horner told AUTOSPORT: “As in 2009, we have elected not to run at the first test with the new car, so we will join at the second test.”
“It’s to optimise the time in the wind tunnel as much as possible,” said Horner. “Obviously the car is much more of an evolution of the 2009 car rather than the clean sheet of regulations that we had for last season.
“But even so, with the refuelling change, we’ve opted to give our designers as much time as possible.”
As Horner implied, it will not be the first time the team has missed the first test. They did the same last year and ended up with an extremely competitive car and their most competitive season ever.
However, with track time limited, RBR’s move could be counter-productive if their machine is not as good as its previous incarnation.
