Red Bull targets 'greater success' with RB7
Team boss Christian Horner says Red Bull Racing is targeting 'greater success' in 2011 after the launch of the new RB7 in Valencia.
The team goes into the new season as defending champions after a stunning 2010 campaign and is widely regarded as the team to beat with its latest Adrian Newey-designed machine.
Having sampled title glory in F1 for the first time, Horner said his aim was to now try and replicate the success he enjoyed with his Arden team in F3000, when a maiden championship crown was quickly followed by more silverware.
"You're always looking for the next thing," he said. "I was thinking about this recently: in Formula 3000 I achieved a championship win in the same time frame as with Red Bull Racing. Then in F3000 I went on to win three titles in a row. I would dearly love to emulate that with this team. We've joined some of the elite names, some of the great teams in Formula One and now we're determined to build on that. We were the most successful team in F1 in 2010 and we want to consolidate that position and seek out even greater success.
"It's a great feeling to arrive here and roll out the car with the number one on it as the reigning World Champions, but now the challenge is to keep it. The team's been very focused on RB7 over the last few months; Adrian didn't release his drawings any earlier than normal, so the whole design group and production team have done a remarkable job to produce this car in the shortest possible time. It's a long season, the longest in F1 history, and we have some great opponents, but we are very motivated and will be working hard to hold on to the two world titles. I'm sure it's going to be a fascinating battle."
Horner added that one of the team's biggest strengths going into the new season was its settled driver pairing of Mark Webber and defending champion Sebastian Vettel - a pairing he insists is the best on the F1 grid.
"We are very lucky in that we have possibly the strongest driver line-up in on the grid," he said. "Sebastian will go into 2011 as the youngest ever F1 champion. That's quite special and continues a pattern started when he became the then youngest driver at a grand prix weekend in 2007. Since then he's been the youngest points scorer, the youngest pole winner and the youngest race winner. Now he has the championship record too and he will undoubtedly want to become the youngest double winner.
"Mark too had the season of his career [in 2010]. He won four races and was in championship contention right up until the final race. Of course he'll have been frustrated to lose out on the title but he will have learned a lot of lessons from 2010 and having had time for reflection, he too will come back stronger, more motivated and hungrier than ever.
"I'm sure also that the results will ebb and flow and there will inevitably be great highs and some lows over the course of such a long season, but as long as we can apply what we learned from 2010 and give it our best shot, the results will take care of themselves - as they did last year."
