RB group boss Laurent Mekies says the group’s future aerodynamic facility adjoining to Crimson Bull’s campus in Milton Keynes is anticipated to come back on-line by the tip of 2024.
RB’s headquarters have traditionally at all times been – and can stay – positioned in Faenza, Italy. However over time, the group has additionally operated a small facility in Bicester, a city nestled inside the UK’s “motorsport valley.”
Nevertheless, with RB relying since 2022 on Crimson Bull’s larger-scale wind tunnel for its improvement, vacating completely the Bicester unit and relocating the group’s aerodynamics operations to a devoted facility in Melton Keynes made good sense.
The improved infrastructure is not going to solely present RB with all of the cutting-edge assets to optimize automotive improvement its location inside the UK’s motorsport hub must also appeal to a wider pool of expert personnel for the group.
Lastly, housing each RB’s aerodynamics division in shut proximity to Crimson Bull’s primary campus will foster a better collaboration and communication between the 2 groups.
“In Bicester, now we have the aero division, idea design and a part of the design workplace – all in a location chosen to be near the wind tunnel,” defined Mekies.
“Fifteen years in the past, the group was smaller than it’s right this moment, and Bicester made sense. At the moment, the aero division has tripled in dimension; we now not use this tunnel as a result of now we have one other one, and the placement is now not appropriate.
“So, we are going to go away it on the finish of the 12 months and transfer to a brand new facility in Milton Keynes, subsequent to the Crimson Bull campus.”
The technical alliance between Crimson Bull Racing and its sister outfit, whereas inside F1’s rules, has been frowned upon by a number of rival outfits, and particularly by McLaren boss Zak Brown who believes that the collaborative partnership is useful to each groups.
There are additionally considerations that the state of affairs might result in personnel shifting from one group to the opposite, a declare that Mekies dismissed.
“The rules are very clear,” he acknowledged. “It is vitally effectively outlined that you just can not use the switch of personnel to bypass the regulation concerning [intellectual property]. So, you can not transfer an individual from group A to group B so as to switch data.
“Now, in our case, I can say that these transfers have been rare, however each time there was a switch we requested the FIA whether or not the transfer of a technician or an engineer in a particular position was to be thought of in step with what was specified within the regulation.
“And now we have at all times acted solely after receiving the OK from the FIA.”
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