Red Bull’s Adrian Newey says there is more to Mercedes launch delay than meets the eye – Formula 1
Red Bull’s Adrian Newey believes that Mercedes delayed launching of its 2012 challenger due to something the team wants to conceal rather than needing more time on development.
Newey speaks from experience and prior knowledge of the how the team worked from the start. Mercedes took over Brawn GP the outfit which won the title in 2009 and went through very similar scenarios as they only revealed their car for the last two pre-season
tests. The car had double blown diffusers and the innovation led them to win the title for that year.
“I assume that they want to hide something from the competition,” Newey admitted to Sport Bild. “It must be something that can be copied quite quickly; otherwise they wouldn't try so hard to keep it secret.”
Newey believes that Mercedes are working on a similar ploy and have come across an innovation that might be easy to copy and thus the team wants to keep under tabs as much as possible to get a head start in the upcoming 2012 season.
“They seem to have something special at the front of the car,” he further added.
The first pre-season test at Jerez was not a successful one for most teams aside from Lotus who clearly stood out with their cars pace and reliability. Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all have some hard work on their hands prior to the season as all three
teams could not come up with a car that came out the way the teams wanted to.
The second pre-season test starts on February 21, 2012 at Barcelona. It will also mark the day Mercedes have chosen to unveil their W03. Red Bull will be looking to improve on their first test performance during the second test while also look at what Mercedes
bring to the table. Mercedes has been speculated to be a strong force for the 2012 season and Newey is already wary of what the team is going to come up with.
It will be imperative for teams to come up with a reliable car before the season begins, so far Lotus is clearly ahead of others in that department so far.
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