15/01/2007
NEWS STORY
At a time when all the teams are targeting the title, or simply that elusive first win, Adrian Newey has warned Red Bull fans not to expect too much in 2007, as he aims for a 'softly, softly' approach.
"Unfortunately I think expectations seem to be quite high," he told race fans in Birmingham at the weekend, "which is a shame. I would much rather go in, in a fairly low-key way, and if we do better than expected that's great.
"We are still a young team," he continued, "and that means that some of our infrastructure and resources aren't yet as good as some of the more established teams."
Having designed numerous championship winning cars for Williams and McLaren, it was regarded a major coup when Red Bull lured Newey away from Woking. However, despite the resources at his disposal, the Englishman is keen to state that there will be no quick fix.
"We are doing a lot of catch-up," he admitted, "and 2006 for Red Bull was quite a weak year. The car had various problems and from mid-season we decided that, since we were clearly not going to be truly competitive in 2006, we would concentrate our efforts on the 2007 car. That meant a further tail off towards the end of the year but we are keen to turn it around for this year."
Despite unease within a majority of the other teams, the RBR3 will be the basis of the Scuderia Toro Rosso contender, Red Bull, which is owned by Dietrich Mateschitz, a close friend of (FIA President) Max Mosley, having seemingly found a loophole in the rules.