AAAAAAHHH MOTHERLANDDD! I, Daniil Kyvat, wrestle Formula One cars as if they were a bear! Oh, hey, that's a wall. Uh. Uh. We brought a spare, right? NYET? Turns out, Red Bull's mad dash to get the car ready for testing at Jerez meant that they only had one front wing on hand. Oops!
Poor Kyvat. There's nothing worse that crashing the car on your first big test of a new car with a new team, but that's exactly what he did with the RB11 on Monday: sent it into the wall.
According to Autosport, Kyvat borked the only wing Red Bull had on hand for the RB11. So, they sent him back out to run some (now-limited, because F1 cars don't run so great without their front end components intact) additional tests in the car. You made this bed, N00bus Maximus, so now you've got to lie in it. Err, drive in it. Whatever.
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner tried to make the case to Formula One that only having one front wing on hand isn't odd:
Daniil has a slight off in the morning on a cold track. He was changing something on his steering wheel between Turns 2 and 3 and lightly made contact which damaged the front wing - the only that we have here in Jerez at the moment, which is not unusual at this time of the year when you don't have tons of spare parts. That's why we've been running without it. There are components arriving and tomorrow we should be back to normal.
Ehhhh. It's a frequently smashed, delicate part. Red Bull not bringing a spare front wing would be like me not bringing spare alternator belts for the 944, which seems to have a thing for tossing its alternator belt. You know it's likely to get borked out of all the bodywork pieces on the car, particularly at a test where both drivers are still adjusting to the new car. That should move it up the priority list for building extras.
When F1 asked if Horner took any aerodynamic measurements from the day of wingless testing, he replied, "What I really should say is that we do have so much downforce - who needs a front wing?"
Red Bull had one of their shortest development times ever for the RB11 this year, barely passing crash tests in time to make it to Jerez.
"It's probably the shortest production and assembly in our previous 10 seasons. It is unbelievable what the factory have turned around so far. But still there is plenty to do before Sunday." said Horner in RACER.
It sounds like certain crucial spares may have been overlooked in the crunch to get the car finished. Fortunately, a new wing arrived in time for today's test, and they've been making normal laps with downforce at both ends of the car all day.
Red Bull plans to keep the design of their car open (read: not homologated for 2015) for as long as possible this year to maximize development time and hopefully catch up to the faster Mercedes cars.
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