newey

Speaking to Sky Sports, during the Red Bull coming home victory parade in Milton Keynes, Newey revealed, “We haven’t got any big (rule) differences next year except for the exhaust position, which we’ve kind of pioneered over the past couple of years – of putting the exhaust out beside the diffuser. That’s all taken away next year.”

The Red Bull RB7 dominated the 2011 world championship, with Sebastian Vettel powering to 11 victories and Mark Webber adding one win to the tally. Vettel went on to claim his second drivers’ world title and Red Bull their second successive constructors’ title.

It was no secret that the RB7′s strength revolved around exhaust layout, as Newey pointed out, “Because the car was designed around that, then we’ve got to go back literally to the drawing board and try and think ‘OK, with that taken away how do we try and re-optimise the car?

Newey, who famously still uses old fashion draughting equipment and drawing board, mused, “It’s difficult to know. Everyone else did a depressingly good job of copying it – McLaren in particular actually managed to get it on the car for the first race. Our car was designed around it, so I’d hope we’d get more out of it than people who retrospectively fitted it.”

“Really now, it’s about who can do the best job in terms of recovering from that loss, in terms of perhaps trying to find other ways around it or just re-optimise the car,” said the 52 year old who has also designed title winning cars for McLaren and williams during his 25 years in Formula 1.

“It’s the usual thing for F1: everyone works through the winter and you know what you’ve done yourself. But you’ve got no idea what everyone else has been up to until we get to the early tests and particularly the first race,” concluded Newey