Red Bull is set to expand its motoring foray beyond the championship winning formula one team.
Autocar reports that the Austrian energy drink company will use its recent F1 team sponsorship with Nissan’s luxury division Infiniti to expand beyond the sport.

Team boss Christian Horner is quoted as confirming Red Bull wants to use its “expertise outside F1″.

“Red Bull used to be known only as an energy drink company, but now it is recognised as an engineering team. It’s a natural evolution for us to get involved in road car engineering,” he said.

The first step will reportedly be a co-developed sports adaptation of an existing Infiniti car.

Red Bull has fixed its KERS problems ahead of the weekend’s Turkish grand prix, the team’s F1 consultant Dr Helmut Marko has confirmed.
The championship leaders have had problems with the energy-recovery technology so far in 2011 aboard the otherwise-impressive RB7 car.

Red Bull vowed to get to the bottom of the issue in the three week gap between China and Turkey.

“Our KERS system is fine, over the Easter break we have made some modifications,” Austrian Marko told the German newspaper Bild.

It was believed the main problem was overheating.

“It is much better now,” added Marko. “It works.”

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel, although losing to McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in China three weeks ago, is confident not only for Turkey but also Barcelona two weeks later.

“The next two tracks should be good for us,” the German is quoted as saying by Kleine Zeitung.

Martin Whitmarsh was highly critical of Sebastian Vettel after Sunday’s Belgian grand prix.

Vettel, 23, lost control of his Red Bull at Spa-Francorchamps whilst attempting an overtaking move and took out McLaren’s Jenson Button.

Earlier, McLaren team boss Whitmarsh admitted he thought the German “got off lightly” with a drive-through penalty.

“Sebastian is an exceptional and very fast driver,” he is quoted by German media.

“But he makes a habit of colliding with other drivers.  Jenson was in a strong position and it hasn’t only damaged his world championship chances but it’s also bad for our team,” added Whitmarsh.

“A mistake like that is something you usually only see in junior formulas, not in formula one.  He is a likeable guy and we know we didn’t do it on purpose.

“He’s developing.  But when you’re fighting for the title, this sort of thing is not easy.  It affects not only him but also those around him,” said Whitmarsh.

“I’m sure he’ll learn a lot from this but it hasn’t happened only today.”

The comments come at the end of the flexible front wing saga, where Whitmarsh was among the loudest critics of Red Bull’s RB6 car.

Red Bull’s Christian Horner admitted Spa was “not a great weekend” for the team’s young driver but said Button also contributed to the incident.

“I think Jenson took him by surprise with how early he braked for the bus-stop and (Vettel) tried to avoid him,” said the Briton.

Overnight in the McLaren pits, the British team have removed an update package – including the Red Bull-style blown diffuser – from the MP4-25 car.
Red Bull’s Mark Webber suspected the championship leaders of “sandbagging” in Friday practice at Silverstone, but in fact McLaren was not happy with the improvements.

“It hasn’t been perfect, that’s the truth,” said Jenson Button after the afternoon session, when he was 13th fastest.

Lewis Hamilton, although half a second quicker than the sister car, added: “The feeling was positive first thing but the changes we made didn’t make it better and that happens sometimes.

“It’s not something you can just bolt on,” added the world championship leader.

With the Red Bull-fight raging, it is easy to overlook that the whole episode was triggered by the major step forward made by McLaren in Turkey.

The entire F1 paddock had predicted another race of utter dominance from the energy drinks-owned team.

But although Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were leading at Istanbul Park, it was the pressure applied by the chasing Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button that revved up the urgency of Vettel’s ill-fated overtaking move.

“We were quicker than the Red Bulls,” said Button.  “It’s amazing how much of a leap we’ve made.  We’ve bridged the gap and the rest have stayed back.”

It is suggested that the success of McLaren’s F-duct on the long straights of Turkey has clouded the overall improvement to the MP4-25 car.

Red Bull tested its own version of the straightline speed-boosting innovation in Istanbul, and will test it again on Friday in Canada after the team decided not to qualify or race with the immature system.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner is busily sorting out the internal teammate crisis at present, but he is also expecting another hard fight from McLaren at the forthcoming races.

“We’ll bounce back in Montreal and Valencia, but those are two tracks that are going to play to (McLaren’s) straightline advantage,” he admitted.

Joan Villadelprat wrote in his latest column for El Pais newspaper: “The Mercedes engine, the most powerful on the grid, is another element playing in the favour of McLaren.”

And Ferrari test driver Marc Gene wrote in El Mundo: “We must applaud the British team.  They did a great race and the one-two was no accident.

“Their improvement has been remarkable and their jump has surprised everybody.”

(GMM)