Helmut Marko has revealed that Red Bull’s wind tunnel, which is currently situated in a listed building, has garnered some complaints from the Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey.
Newey, who has amassed eleven Constructors Championships with his input to Formula 1 car design over the years has aired his complaints about the wartime building the team uses and the effects it can have on testing.
The team are based in Milton Keynes in a factory taken over from previous occupants Jaguar Racing and Stewart Grand Prix, with most of the team’s operations taking place there. However, the wind tunnel used in the testing of technology is actually based at an old RAF facility site – a listed building which cannot be demolished, extended or altered without specific permission from authorities.
The tunnel was built shortly after World War 2 has been described as a “relic of the Cold War” by Team Principal Christian Horner, and therefore it lacks a lot of modern-day features such as good temperature control. The tunnel is reportedly badly affected by the temperature outside, struggling to retain heat.
Therefore, Red Bull have opted to build a new wind tunnel in Milton Keynes, but Marko has confirmed it will be “two to three years before everything is ready.”
Marko told Auto Motor und Sport;
“The problem with our wind tunnel is that it is a post-war product. It was built by the British Ministry of Defense. It’s a listed building.
“It’s incredibly long and not insulated. It takes a while to heat up. When it’s cold outside, it takes even longer.
“That’s why we are now building a new wind tunnel on our premises. Which is actually idiotic because the whole development is going towards CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations. That’s another 50 million because no agreement could be reached. The building is already there. The wind tunnel will practically be moved into it.”
Wind tunnels are set to be phased out of the Formula 1 by 2030; something Newey agrees should be done, stating in May that he would prefer everything be CFD development;
“I would keep everything full CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] development. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough votes for that, although it would be much more sustainable. The usual suspects are against it.”
“It just takes too long for us to ramp up to the desired wind speed,” he said. “And that steals significantly relevant wind tunnel time that we’re actually entitled to.