Formula One 2012 Preview: Red Bull

The 2012 Formula One seasons starts in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday. How are the teams looking ahead of the new season? Here we look at the world champions and expected pace-setters: Red Bull.

The Milton Keynes-based team has enjoyed multiple championship wins over the past two seasons and there is nothing to suggest they won’t be celebrating at the end of 2012 too.

Sebastian Vettel is a double world champion now and can’t be thought of as a young, up-and-coming driver. He’s the complete package and will get everything out of the car in every session—which is exactly what a racing driver should do. The German has fought for the championship for the past three years and the experience that gives a driver cannot be underestimated. His can deal with pressure, he can pass Alonso with two wheels on the grass at 210 MPH, and can win championships.

He’s just about perfect.

Number two driver Mark Webber had a very difficult 2011. He only won one race and that was when his teammate's gearbox failed at the final round in Brazil. The Pirelli tyres were the root cause of his difficulties. Getting the tyres up to temperature and using them correctly through their cycle is not easy. In Australia last year he was 0.866 behind Vettel in qualifying and he never looked like beating his teammate over a weekend as he did so convincingly in Monaco and Spain in 2010.

Webber will have been relieved when Pirelli announced a change to the profile and structure of the 2012 tyres. Whether this results in the Australian challenging his teammate remains to be seen. If he doesn’t keep up with Vettel, he could find his seat given to a younger driver. Mark is 35 years old and is only on a one-year deal.

Red Bull’s key asset is design genius Adrian Newey. He won championships with Williams and McLaren in the 1990s and is now doing the same with Red Bull. The Renault-engined RB8 performed fantastically well in preseason testing.

While the team hasn’t gone for headline times, the car has looked very strong on the track. It flew through the fast turns seven-eight at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, with the drivers taking an identical, fluid line each time through.

It’s that sort of confidence and consistency that adds up to seconds over a race distance. The car looked easy to drive on the limit through the final third of the lap too, which contains a tight left and then a series of varying camber third- and fourth-gear corners that really test a car's traction and aerodynamic grip. No other car was so smooth through these corners, with the drivers only working the wheel when the track turned—no corrections were required.

Just as impressively, the team added a significant aerodynamic update on the penultimate day of the final test. This shows the depth of engineering talent the team has and it will be incredibly hard for the likes of McLaren and Ferrari to out-develop the Milton Keynes squad through the year.