Red Bulletin: Why was the RB05 so incredibly good at the British Grand Prix?
Adrian Newey: There was a few new parts on the car. Obviously we had a new nose, but there were also revised rear-wing endplates and a new floor, all of which brought a bit more performance to the car – but even without the changes I think Silverstone, as a fairly high speed circuit, just suits our car.

RB: …in comparison, for example, to Monaco where the car didn’t perform too well?
AN: Yes, the car isn’t well suited to Monaco. We knew that before we arrived, but it was a useful weekend because we learned a lot from it and we will use that experience to improve our performance at similar tracks in the future.

RB: Are there further RB05 developments in the pipeline?
AN: Of course. We have our normal ongoing development programme in the wind tunnel and the mechanical engineering areas, and those work in combination with what we learn from analysing our performance on the race track and listening to what the drivers say. We study where we’re strong, where we’re weak and build from there. We just spoke about Monaco, where we weren’t as strong as we would like to be in the very low speed corners. We take note of something like that and try to react to it.

RB: At the start of the year all the talk was about KERS and the double diffuser. Neither Red Bull team had either. Why not?
AN: Choosing whether or not to run KERS is a significant choice. We did test the Renault KERS system before the season began and we could have run it for Sebastian [Vettel] but the problem is that we can’t run it on Mark’s car without being overweight. KERS does affect the balance of the car and therefore the handling, so at that point we would be racing with two different specifications of car, and I’m very reluctant to let that happen. Effectively running two one-car teams rather than a two-car team slows your learning down; you can’t do as much as you would with the cars in the same specification, which is the prime reason we’re not running KERS. It’s unfortunate with the current regulations that it’s quite difficult to get underweight if you’re using KERS, so the heavier drivers are penalised – and Mark being tall is at the heavier end of the scale and therefore would suffer that penalty.

The other thing was the double diffuser. We looked in that direction briefly last July, and did a little bit of CFD [computer simulation] work on it, but frankly, we didn’t consider it to be legal. We were very surprised that the FIA considered it to be legal when cars were unveiled with a double diffuser earlier this year. It’s been a problem for us, as clearly our car hasn’t been designed around it and so adapting the back-end of our car has been challenging. I think in truth we don’t get as much out of a double diffuser as we would, had the car been designed with it in mind from the start. We don’t have the resources to entirely redesign the back-end of our cars, so we adapt as best we can.

RB: On the subject of racing with the same specification, it’s noticeable that Sebastian and Mark have very similar set-ups, despite having different driving styles – are they encouraged to do that?
AN: Each driver has his own race and performance engineers and it’s their job to adapt the car to suit the driver. There’s no, if you like, overall dictum that the cars have to be set up the same. I think the fact the setup is very similar is more to do with what suits the car. Also, their driving styles are only a little bit different, not hugely so.

RB: On the same topic, Toro Rosso are recruiting design staff and will be designing their own car next year – will that mean less pressure on your department?
AN: It means we have fewer cars going around the track, so if there are reliability problems they might take longer to surface with two cars rather than four. From a workload point of view it’s not a big difference. The V8 engines are similar to each other, so installing a Ferrari in the Toro Rosso versus installing the Renault in the Red Bull isn’t a big job over and above the basic task. In truth I don’t think next year will change the workload very much.

RB: There’s a joke doing the rounds that you’d be brilliant in the Olympics because you do something great every four years…
AN: Ah… I think design is a team effort; certainly we have a team of very talented engineers. I try to bring some ideas and direction to the table, which is something I’ve always enjoyed doing. What else can I say?

RB: Is working at Red Bull very different to that at Williams and McLaren?
AN: Yes. When I joined Williams and McLaren they were teams that had won races and championships and clearly had the infrastructure to be capable of doing so in the future. When I started with them, they had perhaps lost their way a little bit with design and engineering, but with the infrastructure in place, they were able to get to the point of winning quite quickly. Red Bull is a different case – which is what appealed to me. It’s a very young team, only a year old when I joined, in the process of developing that infrastructure and still building to the point where it could challenge for wins. That’s a much longer process than joining a team already established. It has taken time, but we’re now in a position where we can challenge.

RB: Regardless of the politicking, budgets cuts for next season seem inevitable. Where does that leave your department and Red Bull Racing in general?
AN: For us it has to be good. One of the things to come out of the FOTA negotiations was everyone had to declare their wind tunnel usage, how much CFD resource they have and so forth. Out of that it transpired we are one of the teams doing the least amount of wind tunnel testing. The voluntary restrictions on wind tunnel usage that are now in place mean that other teams who have previously done far more than us, have now come down to where we are. It’s an obvious gain for teams with fewer resources, such as ourselves, when the bigger operators come down to your level. At least that’s the theory anyway.

RB: The FIA’s idea of a budget-cap included far greater technical freedom, surely that must have held some appeal for you?
AN: As an engineer, obviously the more freedom, the better. If you look back at the 1970s, the regulations were very open, but there was very little research budget, which meant understanding what makes a racing car quick was a much less developed science than it is today. That’s not a slight on the designers of the day, they just didn’t have the research resources we have now. As a consequence you saw cars racing in the 1970s that looked very different to each other.

Given the resources and understanding we have today, it’s probably not realistic to have open regulations. Apart from anything else, the cars would just be too fast. Having said that, I do enjoy regulation changes such as those we’ve had over the winter. They allow you to sit back and take a fresh sheet of paper approach; studying the regulations, understanding what they involve, thinking about what the best solutions might be from first principals.

I prefer that to what we’ve had over the last decade. The regulations have been largely stable since 1998 and everything becomes very iterative. Rather than having new ideas, there are simply a series of small alterations on existing, well-established themes. For me that isn’t as interesting as designing something new. It also creates an advantage for those with the most resources – because the bigger the resource, the more iterations you can afford to do.

RB: It almost sounds like you’re a supporter of Max Mosley’s proposals…
AN: Yes, I suppose it does. I think free regulation limited in scope by a budget cap is, in principal, an appealing idea. One that if fairly applied and regulated is the best solution. What worries me is that there are so many ways around it, it’s impossible to police. The allegations of cheating would be very severe. For me it’s like Socialism: great in theory but probably unworkable in practice.

RB: Finally, the big question. Can Red Bull Racing with a championship this year?
AN: Well… I don’t know. We’re somewhat behind; we need to demonstrate we have a car that is quicker on a regular basis. We’ve been quicker than Brawn on occasion, but haven’t yet proved we can do that regularly. Whether or not we can achieve that remains to be seen – and until I know that, I can’t make a forecast.

Mark Webber enjoys a drink on Adrian Newey © Sutton Images