test2wa

Steve Slater

Earlier this week, Red Bull technical chief attended a very special ceremony. At Windsor Castle just outside London, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth awarded Newey the OBE, one of Britain's highest civilian honours.

However, back up the road in Milton Keynes, Newey's design team were still hard at work. This season, for the first time since 2009, the Red Bull Racing team are finding themselves outpaced on the racetrack and there is no doubt that the team is feeling the pressure.

Some of that pressure was shown in Malaysia with Sebastian Vettel's unseemly outburst against Narain Karthikeyan after a collision robbed Vettel of a possible third place. It perhaps indicates that Vettel is finding it hard to become accustomed to battling in the field rather than running away at the front.

While I am sure that Sebastian has the skill and intelligence to ultimately rise to the challenge, in the meantime there could be an opportunity for his team-mate. It should be remembered that Mark Webber has long experience of driving midfield cars at Jaguar, Williams and even in their early years, Red Bull.

It is notable that Webber currently lies fourth in the world championship, two places and six points ahead of the double champion. Could this, despite Vettel's talent and Red Bull's internal politics, be Webber's year?

Of course, it would be only a minor consolation if Webber were to continue to beat Vettel, but still be outpaced by the team's rivals. The Renault-powered Red Bull has been outgunned by Mercedes- and Ferrari-powered machinery, both in terms of raw horsepower and during the races, the performance of the KERS power-boost unit used for overtaking.

Red Bull has elected to use a smaller and lighter, but also less powerful KERS unit than their rivals. It seems that this "KERS lite" unit could be one of the reasons they struggle to maintain race pace.

Last season, Vettel in particular was able to use his early-race pace from pole position to open a sufficient gap to stay ahead of his rivals. This season they are in the pack and the lack of sufficient KERS power boost works against them.

It is notable too that Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has been strongly lobbying the FIA regarding the legality of the Mercedes AMG Petronas W03.
Schumacher and Rosberg have so far been hobbled in races by faster tyre wear than their rivals, but it is clear that Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all regard the Mercedes as a potential race winner.

The car has shown straight-line speeds far faster than their rivals, prompting speculation that Mercedes are using a system of air ducts from the rear wing of the car, which when the DRS moveable wing is activated, also changes the airflow around the front wing, reducing drag. It is certainly clever and probably hard to copy, which is why no doubt, Red Bull is piling as much pressure on the scrutineers, as on their racing rivals.

Just behind the top four teams, there is an equally close-fought battle going on among the mid-field runners. Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean have exceeded expectations with the Lotus and there is a three way battle going on between Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso, both in terms of on-track pace and their ability to continue their pace of development on smaller budgets than the bigger teams.

Meanwhile, after Sergio Perez grabbed the headlines with his second place in Malaysia, it is clear Ferrari were equally impressed with the Sauber car. It has been rumoured that the major upgrade to improve the handling of the Ferrari F2012 will use an almost identical rear-end design to the Ferrari-powered Sauber.

So closely matched are the designs said to be, the Italian magazine Autosprint last week mischievously christened the F2012B, expected to appear at the Spanish Grand Prix in May, the 'Ferrauber'!