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Infiniti/Red Bull Racing Launch RB9 In England

MILTON KEYNES, England- After achieving the
last three championships with a handful of both drivers and constructors titles,
the new Ininiti/ Red Bull RB9 was launched Sunday with the idea to continue the
current streak of good luck that the Austrian based team has accomplished.

The team has not changed much, and this
season is no exception. Three time world champion Sebastian Vettel returns once
again, along with his Australian teammate Mark Webber. The third driver spot
has not been announced yet, but rumors have it that Sebastian Buemi will likely
fill that slot.

“Yes
I do believe I can have a crack at the championship again this year as I have
done in previous seasons,” Webber said. “That’s my goal and that’s
what I’m getting up each day thinking about and working hard with the team on
doing that. They know that I need 100% support; you can’t fight for the
championships with 90%, you need 100%, and that’s what we’re going in to 2013
with this in place and I’m comfortable with that.”

As
for Vettel, he believes even after he has won the last three world drivers titles
in a row, the youngest to do so, the German feels that he is not the favorite.

“It’s
one thing to look back at what we have achieved as a team but really as I feel
it we all start again from zero,” Vettel said. “So we’ve all got the
same chances and it will be a long year here, a lot of races and a very tough
challenge waiting for all of us. I’m looking forward to that and not really
thinking about what happened in the last year’s because I’m also convinced that
it doesn’t really give us a head start or any advantage. If anything the
expectations are there, people expect something, but more than that we expect
ourselves to do well again so there’s a lot of pressure. But I’m just excited
to get out again and get in to the car, start the testing and then go racing
finally and find out where we are.

“It
will be tough; tough to beat Mark [Webber], tough to beat the other guys and
the other teams because they will try everything to beat us. Obviously the last
three years have been very good for us and we’ve managed to beat them but
there’s no guarantee or nothing that helps us to keep winning and keep doing a
good job. So we really have to focus every single time – or in our case every
single lap – and try to get everything together. It’s one thing to do all the
talking now but as soon as you put the helmet on you want to perform and you
want to do your best.”

The car this year was once gain designed
by the legendary Adrian Newey, and features a stepped nose like last year’s
model, but without the cooling slot and includes a very tightly packaged rear
end. Newey states that the car does have
a vanity panel that disguises the stepped nose, but does not move too far
forward.

“It’s
an evolutionary car as you might imagine; no big regulation changes over the
winter,” Newey said. “Probably
perhaps the most significant change is not the regulations but it’s the new
Pirelli tires. We had a quick test of those in FP1 in Brazil but it was a very
green track, a very hot track, so in truth we didn’t learn a lot. Of course
Pirelli’s supplied us data as to how the tires behave from their point of view
but past experience says it’s only when you get out testing that you can really
find out about them.

“It’s
really been [about] refining RB8 so no huge changes; it’s very much an
evolutionary car. As I say there’s no big regulation changes – the front wing
stiffness test has been harshened further so that makes it actually quite
difficult to comply now just in terms of how stiff the wing has to be. The rest
of the car is very much an evolutionary car so as you can see all the
principles that were taken from last year’s but hopefully it’s evolved a
lot.”

“I think this is actually a tribute to
the work of all the guys over the winter because we actually had a very tight
championship battle last year and it was difficult trying to develop last
year’s car and trying to do the research in to this year’s car. I have to admit
some of that research did suffer in the championship battle and obviously it
worked for us but it gave us a very tight timeframe to design and manufacture
this car and to actually have it here today – two days before the first test –
is an absolutely remarkable achievement by the guys.”

Team manager Christian Horner is another
member that has recently resigned his commitment for the squad. The Englishman
also stated that the recent opinions by owner Helmut Marko about Webber was his
own view.

“As
we know, Helmut can be outspoken at times and certainly his comments reflected
his opinion and sometimes things can be misinterpreted as well,” he said. “But
if we weren’t happy with Mark we wouldn’t have signed him to be with the team
for this year. We’re very happy with Mark and we give both drivers equal
opportunity and it’s ultimately down to what they do on the circuit. Certainly
within the team that very much is the opinion and the approach and we will
continue to do that.

“For
us it doesn’t matter which driver wins as long as it’s a driver in one of these
cars and both of these guys are here because we believe that they’re the best
and because we want them in the team. Obviously as a team we’ll do the very
best that we can to support both drivers.”

Japanese
car manufacturer Infiniti had a small role in the sponsorship last year, but
now it is the leading co-sponsor and is more visible on the car, which should
be another favorite to do well this season.

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