Unlike the main Red Bull team, Racing Bulls looks back on an impressive start to the season. The team from Faenza is only two World Championship points behind their big brother from Milton Keynes, thanks to consistent points finishes in Melbourne, Shanghai, and Suzuka. During the spring break, team principal Alan Permane reflects on the past races and explains Racing Bulls’ upgrade plans.
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“I think we did well,” Permane reflected in a new press release. “I’m not someone who likes to compliment myself, but we performed well in Shanghai. We scored points in both the sprint race and the main race, even though we weren’t really fast enough. In Suzuka it was similar, but we got the maximum out of the car to score points. We pay the price compared to the teams we compete with, who developed their cars last season, while we only further developed ours at the end of the year.”
Upgrades
Due to the unexpected spring break in April, Racing Bulls can take ample time to evaluate the past weeks. Moreover, the team will bring double upgrades at the upcoming Grands Prix in Miami and Canada. “We have a few things in the pipeline,” revealed Permane. “We initially had a significant upgrade planned for Bahrain, which we are now taking to Miami, and we also had updates planned for Montréal. In fact, we are implementing an accelerated double upgrade.”
The fact that both cars were shipped back to the factory after Japan offered extra opportunities for the team. “We took the opportunity to carry out unscheduled work on the chassis,” explained the English team principal. “We are using this period to build up the cars so that the design department can see them fully assembled. The cars are almost never in the factory during the season, so this is a good chance to complete work we couldn’t do earlier.”
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Make-up races
Permane then revealed that Racing Bulls expects the Grands Prix of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to be rescheduled for a later date. “Some departments within the company have had to work harder than expected, so we encouraged the team to take some time off. If one or both of the canceled races return to the calendar, we also expect a busy end to the year. Therefore, we want to ensure everyone can benefit from this rest period now.”
Racing Bulls benefited in the opening phase from the new Red Bull power unit. The brand-new engine, which Red Bull developed independently with the help of Ford, often performed above expectations. “The power unit works very well and with every lap we drive, we learn more,” acknowledged Permane. “An advantage is that we have engine engineers within our own team, allowing us to work closely with them and better understand both them and their working methods. This break gives us the opportunity to pause and evaluate what we have done so far,” he concluded. “There will probably be some changes in how we use the power unit for Miami and the races after. We are using this period to work closely together and extract maximum performance from both the power unit and the chassis.”
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