RED BULL RB7 Renault

   The 2011 Red Bull RB7 is regarded as one of the most dominant single-seaters in Formula 1 history. Designed by aerodynamic genius Adrian Newey, it secured both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ World Championships, with Sebastian Vettel taking the drivers’ crown alongside team-mate Mark Webber. The Red Bull Racing powerhouse, owned by Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of the Red Bull brand, was once again led by Christian Horner, Team Principal as well as the public face and commander-in-chief of the Milton Keynes-based outfit. At his side stood Helmut Marko, not a direct employee of the team but Mateschitz’s special adviser and the man ultimately responsible for the entire Red Bull Junior Team programme.

RED BULL RB7, Mark Webber
Sepang, Malaysian GP 2011 

   The RB7’s extraordinary success was the result of the work of a tightly knit technical organisation headed by Adrian Newey in his role as Chief Technical Officer. Rob Marshall, the Chief Designer, oversaw the mechanical design of the chassis and internal systems, as well as the highly sophisticated suspension layout and the extremely compact packaging of the carbon-fibre gearbox. Peter Prodromou (Head of Aerodynamics) was Newey’s long-standing right-hand man and oversaw the team’s wind-tunnel development programme. Paul Monaghan (Head of Car Engineering) supervised trackside operations and acted as the crucial link between the factory and the garage throughout race weekends, ensuring that aerodynamic developments translated immediately into performance once they reached the circuit. Giles Wood (Head of Race Engineers and Simulation) led the simulation department, which played a fundamental role in refining the complex Renault engine maps associated with the RB7’s blown-exhaust system before the car even took to the track. Other key figures included Mark Ellis (Chief Engineer for Performance), Steve Winstanley (Deputy Chief Designer for Composites and Structures), David Worner (Deputy Chief Designer for Mechanics and Suspension), Rob Gray (Head of R&D) and Dan Fallows (Chief Aerodynamicist). Also central to the operation were Guillaume “Rocky” Rocquelin and Ciaron Pilbeam, the respective race engineers for reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel and his team-mate Mark Webber.

RED BULL RB7, Sebastian Vettel
Barcelona-Catalunya, Spanish GP 2011

   The RB7’s aerodynamics represented one of the high points of Adrian Newey’s career. In a season marked by the abolition of the double diffuser and the F-Duct, Newey not only succeeded in recovering the aerodynamic load lost through the regulatory changes, but produced a car capable of generating unprecedented levels of downforce, particularly through medium- and high-speed corners. The RB7’s true conceptual masterpiece was the way its exhaust gases were incorporated into the aerodynamic behaviour of the underbody. The exhaust outlets emerged at floor level, immediately ahead of the rear wheels, directing high-velocity hot gases into the narrow space between the inner shoulder of the tyre and the diffuser’s sidewall. The result was effectively an invisible aerodynamic barrier. This exhaust flow prevented the turbulent vortices generated by the rotating rear tyres from intruding into the diffuser, keeping the low-pressure region beneath the car remarkably clean and effective. The real magic occurred with the throttle closed, thanks in no small part to the Renault Sport F1 engineers led trackside by Fabrice Lom. The French engineers worked closely with Newey’s group to develop sophisticated electronic engine maps and control the airflow through the RS27 V8 when the driver lifted off or partially closed the throttle. With the throttle closed, the engine management system continued to retard the ignition and inject an air-fuel mixture into the exhaust manifolds, where it could combust and maintain the necessary exhaust-gas pressure. This made the blown-exhaust concept effective even when the driver was not on the throttle, allowing the diffuser to continue generating a consistent level of aerodynamic load under braking and during turn-in. The result was a significant reduction in the rear-end instability traditionally associated with braking and corner entry. The RB7 further refined Red Bull’s philosophy of running an aggressively forward-tilted chassis, or high-rake setup, which had become a defining characteristic of the team’s V8-era cars. The rear of the car was positioned considerably higher than the front, turning the entire underfloor into an enormous Venturi channel. To make such an extreme rake angle work, the front wing had to remain as close to the track surface as possible, channeling air beneath the chassis and towards the underfloor channels. The RB7’s carbon-fibre front wing was therefore designed with a controlled degree of flexibility, allowing it to deform under aerodynamic load at high speed. The outer wing elements flexed slightly downwards, moving closer to the track surface and creating an exceptionally powerful front-ground-effect phenomenon. At the same time, the wing generated a strong vortex, most notably the so-called Y250 vortex, which was directed beneath the sidepods to push external turbulence away from the central body of the car.

RED BULL RB7, Sebastian Vettel
Istanbul Park, Turkish GP 2011

   Another of the RB7’s greatest strengths was the complete integration of its mechanical components with its aerodynamic requirements, taken to an extreme level. The suspension system was designed primarily to maintain a consistent ride height, preventing unwanted changes to the airflow beneath the chassis. At the front, Red Bull retained a push-rod layout, but positioned the rockers and internal suspension mechanisms very high inside the nose, leaving the lower section of the chassis as unobstructed as possible. At the rear, Newey continued with the pull-rod arrangement first introduced on the team’s cars in 2009. By moving the springs and dampers downwards, almost to the bottom of the chassis, the engineers significantly lowered the centre of gravity while freeing up space above the gearbox. This allowed the sidepods to be tapered extremely aggressively and the airflow heading towards the diffuser to remain as clean as possible. The suspension geometries also featured pronounced angles designed to counteract front-end dive under braking and rear-end squat under acceleration. In this way, the high-rake configuration remained stable and predictable throughout every phase of driving. The sophisticated suspension system also helped the RB7 bring the new Pirelli tyres up to operating temperature quickly, a crucial advantage in qualifying, without generating excessive degradation over a race distance. Power came from the Renault RS27-2011 V8. It was not the most powerful engine in the field, but it was highly flexible and particularly well suited to Red Bull’s extreme mechanical packaging philosophy. The KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) also returned to Formula 1 in 2011, providing approximately 80 horsepower of additional power for up to 6.6 seconds per lap. Newey demanded that the electric motor and battery packs, developed in conjunction with Magneti Marelli, be made as compact as possible and packaged within and around the carbon-fibre gearbox casing and monocoque structure. This relentless pursuit of mechanical compactness was perhaps the RB7’s only significant weakness. During the first half of the season, the KERS system was frequently affected by overheating problems, leading to repeated radio messages instructing Webber and Vettel to switch it off. Even so, the car’s aerodynamic advantage was so substantial that it more than compensated for the occasions on which KERS could not be used.

RED BULL RB7, Mark Webber
Monza, Italian GP 2011

   The 2011 season was a triumphant march for the Red Bull RB7 from beginning to end. Across the 19 Grands Prix on the calendar, the car left its rivals fighting for scraps, establishing extraordinary statistical and performance records. Sebastian Vettel won five of the first six races (Australia, Malaysia, Turkey, Spain and Monaco) taking pole position at every one of those events except Spain, where team-mate Webber topped qualifying. The opposition was often beaten within the opening laps thanks to the RB7’s seemingly untouchable pace during the first stint. Between Canada, Great Britain and Germany, Ferrari and McLaren managed to score a handful of isolated victories, helped in part by the FIA’s temporary ban on the use of so-called hot blown-exhaust engine maps, a restriction that was subsequently lifted. Once the original interpretation of the regulations was restored, the RB7 returned to its seemingly unbeatable form. Vettel then embarked on a run of consecutive victories in Belgium, Italy, Singapore and Korea, wrapping up the World Championship with three races remaining at Suzuka. The most intimidating aspect of the RB7, however, was its performance over a single lap. Red Bull secured 18 pole positions out of 19, with Vettel taking 15 of them himself and surpassing Nigel Mansell’s previous record of 14 poles in a single season, set in 1992. Alongside its outright speed, the RB7 demonstrated remarkable reliability, suffering only two retirements throughout the entire season, one of them caused by a puncture. Red Bull Racing’s triumphant 2011 campaign ended with an extraordinary record of 12 victories, seven second-place finishes, eight third-place finishes and 650 points, confirming the RB7 as one of the most complete and dominant machines of the modern Formula 1 era.