Red Bull motorsport chief Helmut Marko says FIA’s floor holes ruling not significant – Formula 1
Red Bull motorsport chief Helmut Marko has said that he does not think that FIA’s ruling over Formula 1 floor regulations will have a significant impact on Red Bull’s 2012 campaign.
Red Bull is defending its title in the season and so far have found the competitiveness in the season difficult to cope with. Although Sebastian Vettel is placed second in the leading drivers of the season behind Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber won the last
race in Monaco the team have still found it hard to maintain its lead.
The gap between teams in this season is very little and that has allowed for the top five teams in the season to be in contention for the title.
Adrian Newey is known for his aerodynamics work and is considered the best in the business. The team used the double diffuser system in 2011 to good effect and dominated the season with 11 wins to Vettel and 1 to Mark Webber.
This season however the FIA banned the double diffuser and the field looks much more levelled this year. Yet Newey and Red Bull team found a grey area in the regulations and utilised it to their benefit. The team put holes in the RB8’s floor which gave the
car improved down-force.
The floor holes were introduced during the Bahrain GP which was won by Vettel and the Monaco GP where down-force was of high importance because of the nature of the circuit was won by his team-mate Webber.
FIA’s has effectively banned the floor holes after several teams threatened to protest before the Monaco GP.
Marko playing down the significance said that Montreal is a different track and the ruling will not affect the team. He added that the ruling does not only affect Red Bull but also other teams.
“We had not planned to use this floor in Montreal anyway,” Marko said. “We had prepared a different configuration using a flat version of the floor. Therefore we do not need to modify the cars in Canada.”
He insisted the FIA decision was not just a ruling against Red Bull, saying, “This concerned other teams too, not only RBR.”
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