Horner defends Newey’s aggressive design

Did Adrian Newey go too far this time, or will he have the last laugh by the end of the year?

Days before the 2014 F1 season opener, at which his team is not widely expected to embarrass themselves and perhaps not even finish, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has defended his design guru Adrian Newey.

Despite fears that his team could get slaughtered in the opening races, Horner has leapt to the defense of the British designer.

"We aggressively pushed the boundaries on the packaging of the car, as Adrian always does, to try and get every bit of aerodynamic advantage," he is quoted as saying by the Guardian. "Pushing the boundaries in all areas is what Formula One is all about. It's about getting the most out of every single element.

"We took a step over the line at the first test," he continued. "We then engineered our way out of that for Bahrain, and cooling now isn't an issue with the car at all.

"Adrian's probably the most competitive person I've ever met," he insisted. "For sure, he's working tremendously hard at the moment. But we can't control all aspects of the vehicle. Collectively with Renault, I'm confident we'll get on top of it. Sometimes to find the limit you've got to go over where the limit is, otherwise you don't know where it is. We'd rather make a quick car reliable than a reliable car quick. It's far harder that way round, and I think fundamentally the car we've got is good.

"The split between chassis and engine is obviously different in our team than it is at Mercedes and Ferrari," he admitted. "We're not totally integrated. We have an extremely close working relationship, and there's an awful lot of exchange of information and ideas.

"Reliability is going to be a key element. The other element is the restriction in the amount of fuel, and how you run your race, and Melbourne is one of the highest-demanding circuits. A dry race with no safety cars is going to put a few teams under pressure with regard to fuel economy."