Christian Horner: Red Bull Racing to use KERS on for the 2011 Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix
Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner has recently revealed that the team is going to use the Kinetic Energy Recovery System on its car for the 2011 Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix.
Red Bull did not use the system for the season opening race that took place in Australia this past weekend.
“We will run KERS in Malaysia. It was a very marginal decision not to run it (in Australia). In Malaysia there is a long run to the first turn and we are keen to get it on the car there,” he told the media.
Red Bull Racing dominated throughout the weekend as Sebastian Vettel won the race by a significant margin over McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who took 2nd place in the race followed by Lotus Renault GP’s Vitaly Petrov.
Sebastian Vettel took the pole position during the qualifying session with the fastest lap over 7 tenths faster than Lewis Hamilton’s second fastest time of the session which is quite a big margin in terms of lap times especially during the qualifying sessions.
“Sebastian based himself on his opponents, setting his pace according to the competition -- especially Hamilton. We just wanted the gap for a pitstop or in case the safety car came out. In the end he was just protecting the tyres. We still have some more
in it (the car),” Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko told the media.
However, Mark Webber was unable to give a very good performance in the RB7 as he qualified in 3rd place but finished in 5th place behind Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari.
Either way, the team got the results it was looking for but at the end of the race, Sebastian told his team to keep in mind the things they learnt during the race through the team’s radio as they learnt a lot about their new car after experiencing a full
race for the first time in the RB7.
Moving on, Christian Horner stated that the system proved unreliable and benefits of the Albert Park Circuit in Australia were overweighed by the risks Red Bull were facing.
In Malaysia however, the team is going to use KERS, a device that stores heat energy after converting it into Kinetic Energy that can be used later on by the respective drivers in order to give the car a sort of a power boost that gives immediate acceleration
for a certain amount of time.
Since Malaysia has two much longer straights, Christian believes that it would be better to use KERS there and figure out the problems the team is facing in using the system.
Tags: