Motorsport: Red Bull finally gives Webber wings

Friday motorsport reportMay 4, 2007

Coulthard flies, Aussie teammate up there too
At last there are some serious signs that Mark Webber is going to have a Red Bull car to go racing competitively in Formula 1 this year.

Red Bull Racing has emerged from this week's testing in Barcelona with a lot of positive signs.

David Coulthard was the quickest driver on the fourth and final day of the test, while Webber had been second quickest the previous two days.

The Australian did not drive on the final day. Indeed only seven drivers did, after rain interruptions throughout the week, and the last session was again hampered by showers and ended an hour earlier than scheduled.

Ferrari set the pace the first three days, with Kimi Raikkonen quickest Monday and Tuesday and Felipe Massa on Wednesday.

Webber was just 0.3 seconds slower than Massa that day and completed 95 laps, while dual world champion Fernando Alonso was only fifth in his McLaren-Mercedes. In more than 70 laps, Alonso could not come within half a second of Webber's time.

Webber says the RB3 car is much improved from the first three races of the year, in which there have been some hints of competitiveness -- especially from him in qualifying -- but no world championship points.

He has been far less optimistic and patient than veteran teammate Coulthard to date, but today Webber says: "We are definitely moving in the right direction."

Red Bull ran its seamless shift gearbox for the first time at Barcelona this week and is now likely to race with it at next week's Spanish Grand Prix at the same track.

"We have worked a lot on the gearbox," Webber says.

"We had it off on Wednesday afternoon to see how it compared.

"It seems good. The balance of the car is quite good.

"We seem to have some speed."

Webber also ran with a new front wing on the RB3 which featured large cascades similar to those Ferrari, Williams and Toyota have used and new sidepod winglets with a hot-air "chimney" and winglet in one piece.

The RB3 also featured sidepod-mounted wing mirrors seen earlier in the season.

Red Bull owner, the usually reserved Austrian tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz, has spoken publicly this week after the team, and sister outfit Toro Rosso, which he half-owns, were described in the Austrian media as being in crisis.

"We (Red Bull Racing) are in not such a bad condition for a new private team in its third year," Mateschitz told Welt newspaper.

Mateschitz says the RB3 hit the test tracks six weeks late after both teams had to adapt to new tyre and engine suppliers -- Bridgestone and Renault.

"And Adrian Newey (the design guru previously with McLaren, and Williams in its heyday) built a completely new car, where no screw is the same as last year," Mateschitz says.

"We also have a new wind tunnel, which we discovered gave some incorrect numbers when we began to test the car."

Mateschitz is aiming for fifth in the constructors' championship this year.

He insists that Red Bull Racing's foundations are solid and that its "potential is larger than other teams".

Coulthard's best lap on the final day of the Barcelona test admittedly came on low fuel, but it beat Raikkonen's record time Monday for the revised circuit, with McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa 0.2 seconds slower, while Massa missed most of the dry spell after a hydraulics failure and completed only 38 laps for the day.

Honda, another team yet to score a point this season, also made some progress in Barcelona.

It tried a pair of vertical, curving winglets -- promptly branded "dumbo ears" after the cartoon elephant -- on the top of its car's nose.

The devices were removed by the end of the day after having failed to produce any benefit.

All teams will have to have stiffer floors in their cars for the Spanish GP because of the much tougher testing of them -- they will need to withstand 2000 Newtons without bending, instead of the previous 500 Newtons -- after the controversy over flexing floors that started at the opening round of the season in Melbourne.

Honda's engineering director Jacky Eeckelaert told autosport.com: "Everyone has had to stiffen or strengthen their floor by having more carbon layers. It means there is more weight but because it is at the bottom of the car it is not too bad."

The Williams team's Australian technical director, Sam Michael, told Autosport: "Teams will certainly have to lift the car by some amount and that will affect the optimum set-up, but I don't foresee it making any significant changes to the running order because every team will have to make some form of change to their cars.

"It won't be like in Malaysia (at round two), where some teams had to make changes while others did not."

With the European rounds of the championship now about to start, McLaren leads Ferrari by five points in the constructors' championship, while Alonso, his rookie McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton and Melbourne winner Raikkonen are tied on 22 points in the drivers' championship.

DJR still denying Carlin move
The report early this week in MeNews, the new weekly electronic version of Motorsport News, that Britain's Carlin Motorsport was in the process of taking over Dick Johnson Racing, the oldest team in Australian touring car racing, set off a storm.

And it's still bubbling along because of Motorsport News indicating it has a fuller story to come.

"I don't know where they've got their information from and I can't wait to read the full story," DJR's Steve Chalker has told Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper.

We understand Chalker owns 10 per cent of the team, that Dick Johnson retains 60 per cent, and one or more other investors hold the other 30 per cent.

Despite denials, we understand Carlin has been offered 25 per cent of the team, but perhaps nothing more than that at this stage.

MeNews says Carlin "is expected to take control of the entire operation at the end of the year".

Chalker says DJR is not for sale.

"I'm sure they (Carlin) are interested in going V8 racing, but we are not actively looking for an equity partner," he told the Courier-Mail.

"It (the MeNews story) could have just been triggered by someone overhearing a conversation and it has gone pear-shaped from there."

Foyt and Unser get together for 500
Two great names of American open-wheeler racing, Foyt and Unser, are joining forces for this month's 91st Indianapolis 500.

Celebrating his 50th year of going to The Brickyard, A.J. Foyt has hired Al Unser Jr to drive a Dallara-Honda for him in the May 27 race.

Cars -- including one driven by Australian Ryan Briscoe for 14-time winning team owner Roger Penske's son Jay -- take to the track next Tuesday and the pole position will be decided the following Saturday, May 12.

Unser, winner of the closest Indy 500 history in 1992 and again in 1994 who has been battling an alcohol problem for several years, will carry the number 50 as a tribute to Foyt's milestone.

Foyt was the victorious driver at Indianapolis in 1961, '64, '67 and '77 and the winning team owner in 1999, with Kenny Brack as his driver.

"I think this is our best chance at Indy since we won it in '99," says Foyt, who also has his regular IndyCar driver, Englishman Darren Manning, entered.

It will be the 19th start for 45-year-old Unser in the 500.

"A.J. played a big role in getting my dad started at Indy in '65, so when A.J. called me to drive for him I felt honored and very proud," Unser says.

Al Unser Senior won four times at the Brickyard too, and his brother Bobby three times.

The other four-time winner is Rick Mears.

Al Junior has not driven full-time in the Indy Racing League since 2003, and indeed has only raced four times in the past four years.

Talladega bans feral fans
Talladega Superspeedway has banned 14 fans for life from buying tickets after the mass arrests last Sunday for throwing beer cans on the track after Jeff Gordon overtook the late Dale Earnhardt's 76 career victories, which included 10 at Talladega.

The fans were charged with disorderly conduct and posted bond at the track's jail facilities, Talladega County Sheriff Jerry Studdard said.

Although banned, track officials can't prevent the 14 from buying tickets through others.

Snow, 69, pleaded guilty to injury to a child and accepted three years' probation.

Snow was arrested last September after a 17-year-old reported Snow that had been molesting him since grade five, had drugged him and paid him for sexual favors. Snow is listed as one of the National Hot Rod Association's top 50 drivers in history.

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