Cooling Off at Silverstone

By Ian Lockwood
February 8 2006

At a cold and damp Silverstone, Robert Doornbos succesfully completed his third test for Red Bull Racing yesterday. The team tested new parts aimed at solving the cooling problems that have limited the RB2 to shorts runs at tests so far this year.

During the course of the day, Robert drove some 90 laps in which he set a fastest time of 1:25.6.

As the air temperature didn’t exceed the level of 8 degrees celsius the entire day, the team mainly focussed on an intensive aerodynamics programme before lunch. In six separate socalled ‘constant speed runs’ Robert was given the assignment to drive at a constant top speed at the circuit’s two long straigths. In the first run Robert started at a speed of 150 km/h, the next run at 175 km/h, and so gradually moving up each run untill a max top speed 250 km/h was reached. At the end of the morning session, Robert and the team also practised some pitstops and some starts.

As the track dried up in the afternoon, the same programme was repeated after the lunch but this time on slick tyres. On from 14:30h Robert finished the day by completing several ‘long runs’ before the darkness came in at 16:30h.

ROBERT DOORNBOS: “A very productive day! The design team did a very good job in the last few weeks to supply us with some new parts which we tested on the car for the first time today. It looks like we have solved the heating issues we suffered from lately, as I could complete several long runs this afternoon without experiencing any problems. By setting constant laptimes the entire day I think I also scored some points by my engineers!”