Red Bull showcar = unfair advantage?

[Chris Jenkins]

Hi everyone.
I've noticed recently that Red Bull do far more showcar events than any other F1 team.

Now I know the car is effectively an old V10 with 2011 livery, but for these events, what's stopping Red Bull from testing mechanical and electrical parts "under the hood"?
As well as gathering data on the tyres?

Surely the FIA won't send out an official to every one of these publicity events, so what's stopping Red Bull from using these events to test parts that aren't visible?

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Whats preventing other teams to have such a kickass marketing department as Red Bull has and do the same is the question that spring to my mind

 

[Wayne Reed]

Because its to do with the ecu in the car. All the teams get them from the fia and they are made by microsoft so they cant run any thing on there cars without the fia knowing about it. Also these events you talk about are for only say 5 laps at most so there is know way they could get any data from that that would help them.

You need to show abit more faith in the sport before you start saying RedBull might be cheating. You could always email the team and ask them what they have to do with the fia to let them use there cars. I would have thought they would be more then happy to let you know

Also you need tou look at other teams a liitle more as most if not all teams do these things at some point in the year like the last 2 years when the DTM was a brands hatch i stood and see Lewis doing 5 laps in his mclaren

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Very true and no arguments there, and no doubt McLaren probably did the same with Jenson Button's run at Bathurst, but surely due to the Red Bull brand, they need to do a lot more marketing, that I doubt is coming out of the F1 team's budget.
So my curiosity is, surely Red Bull can affectively do a lot more "free" testing by simply sticking some new components on the show car that a different Red Bull budget is paying for and palm it off as energy drink PR and marketing?

 

[Scott Webber]

it's all to do with marketing and entertainment... don't be silly there's no way they can test new parts out or data, that is illegal.

Red Bull is the biggest marketing team in F1.... In almost every single Sporting Event you see a Redbull Cap or big banner's..... Red Bull Air Race, Red Bull MTX etc etc, they sponsor alot of sporting events

you'll see Red Bull in Nascar soon if they ain't in there already lol

 

[Chris Butcher]

Anyway - the tyres wouldn't last long anyway. They have to get the tyres from pirelli, who are in turn bound by the FIA. For publicity events, there is a special tyre that can be used, which has a very high rate of wear and doesn't offer much grip. So any data they could potentially get would be useless anyway as the car is incapable of doing racing speed

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

you'll see Red Bull in Nascar soon if they ain't in there already lol

The Red Bull Toyota had it's first race in 2007

 

[Chris Jenkins]

That pretty much answers my question guys, thank you.
I was never implying that Red Bull were cheating. I guess when you don't know the technical details surround the showcars and the FIA that it's easy to jump to conclusions

 

[David Chardar]

Wasn't it Ferrari that ran new parts on a show car last season? I seem to remember a story about this but can't find any source.

 

[Oliver Keeves]

Look, Red Bull are a team that cheat, Mark Webber took out Hamilton in Singapore, Vettel took Button out in Belgium and Webber attempted to take out Alonso in Korea. These are att deliberate from Red Bull and I do agree with Chris Jenkins here with the testing of parts however, all of the teams are technically cheating with additional parts at showcase events.

 

[Kevin Ascher]

Look, Red Bull are a team that cheat, Mark Webber took out Hamilton in Singapore, Vettel took Button out in Belgium and Webber attempted to take out Alonso in Korea. These are att deliberate from Red Bull and I do agree with Chris Jenkins here with the testing of parts however, all of the teams are technically cheating with additional parts at showcase events.

Big LOL @ that
Everyone who is slightly into formular racing that uít doesn't make no sense at all to deliberately take someone out as you are more than likely going to damage your own, very fragile, car and will destroy your race the most.
Besides that, if you had read all the posts above or were informed a tiny little bit better you would have been able to tell that there are no advantages coming with testing parts of a car that is running on tyres which are insanely much slower than the actual racing compounds.
Anyway, why did I actually reply to your post? Gotta be pretty bored.

 

[Ryan Callan]

Look, Red Bull are a team that cheat, Mark Webber took out Hamilton in Singapore, Vettel took Button out in Belgium and Webber attempted to take out Alonso in Korea. These are att deliberate from Red Bull and I do agree with Chris Jenkins here with the testing of parts however, all of the teams are technically cheating with additional parts at showcase events.

To quote Stuart Thomson: Boll, and quite possibly, ocks.

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

To sum up the original question of this thread:

Would a V8 Supercar team test a new part on a Group A Holden or Ford from the 80s?

The analogy may be a bit exaggerated, but the same applies to F1 show cars. They have little in common with the current race cars and are based on chassis from more than three seasons ago - they are out of date, and thus it would make no sense to test new components on them because they would not affect the car in the same way as they would a current car. And as others have said above me, teams aren't allowed to use the race-spec Pirelli compounds, which nullifies any advantage gained, if any is gained at all.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

They are using old spec cars on different tyres, any testing they could do would be useless because of these reasons.

 

[Mark Tuma]

Because its to do with the ecu in the car. All the teams get them from the fia and they are made by microsoft so they cant run any thing on there cars without the fia knowing about it.

The ECUs are made by McLaren Electronic Systems, with some undefined partnership with Microsoft (which makes me think Microsoft are very much a bit part player in it).

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Look, Red Bull are a team that cheat, Mark Webber took out Hamilton in Singapore, Vettel took Button out in Belgium and Webber attempted to take out Alonso in Korea. These are att deliberate from Red Bull and I do agree with Chris Jenkins here with the testing of parts however, all of the teams are technically cheating with additional parts at showcase events.

I'd just like to quickly re-iterate that at no point was I implying that Red Bull were a team of cheats.
I was simply curious as to whether it was possible for teams to test electronic or mechanical parts on their show cars.

 

[Dave Oliver]

I know at Bathurst they used the new Soft Pirelli tyre, even the V8 was running sprint tyres. As it was a mega green track, which was under water that morning.