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Red Bull have announced that they will miss the first test and release their 2010 challenger on 10 February at Jerez.

Designer Adrian Newey said that because the RB6 is an evolutionary design following on from last year’s radical RB5 he didn’t feel they needed to be at the first test to “establish the basic concept of the car.”

Instead, the team will save their engines and tyres while they further research the car in the wind tunnel back at Milton Keynes.

For now, here’s some hot RB5 on ice action. They obviously can’t wait to get back to Montreal…

Video: Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber secured Red Bull’s second 1-2 finish of the season at the British Grand Prix on Sunday.

As indicated by Vettel’s incredible pace in qualifying, the young German was in another class for the whole race, crossing the line 15 seconds ahead of team mate Mark Webber, who was followed by Rubens Barrichello.

From the moments the lights went out in front of a capacity crowd at Silverstone, Vettel’s win was never really in doubt.  Rubens Barrichello managed to hold second position off the line but lost out to Mark Webber in the first set of pit stops.

Championship leader Jenson Button got squeezed at the start, dropping back to P9 behind Jarno Trulli and then struggled to keep the heat in his hard tyres, eventually finishing the race in 6th:

On the hard tyres the car just didn’t work and I couldn’t get any tyre temperature. That’s the way our car is in cooler temperatures.

Lewis Hamilton started 18th and  finished a slightly less miserable 16th.

While the local fans may have been hoping for a Brit to win what may be the last F1 race at Silverstone, the Red Bull resurgence has injected a bit more excitement into what was fast becoming a foregone conclusion.  All those extra bits Adrian Newey bolted onto the RB5 allowed Sebastian Vettel to close his gap to Button from 32 points to 25 points and the 1-2 finish sees Red Bull narrow Brawn’s lead in the Constructors’ Championship from 39.5 points to 30.5 points.

The Championship is far from over.

2009 British Grand Prix Race Results

Image: Red Bull / Getty

The two Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber posted the quickest time in both practice sessions for the British Grand Prix at a windy Silverstone on Friday.

Sebastian Vettel outpaced his team mate in both sessions but the new parts Red Bull have fitted (including a new front wing and nose) were obviously working well.

Mark Webber’s second session was cut short when he hit the curb and lost all electrical power:

It’s been a pretty good day for us; we’ve tried a few new bits here, which seem to be going pretty well. We’ve tried both sets of tyres and need to go through all the data tonight.  My second session ended a little early as I hit a kerb on Turn five, which caused the car’s electronics to stop.

In the first session, the two Brawn GP cars were 3rd and 4th fastest but, surprisingly, it was Force India’s Adrian Sutil who went 3rd fastest in the second session.

As Silverstone is such a light braking circuit, it can be hard to harvest enough energy to make KERS worthwhile so McLaren chose to run different strategies for their drivers in practice.  Heikki Kovalainen continued to use KERS while Lewis Hamilton ran without the device as Norbert Haug explains:

Lewis today drove without KERS because Silverstone is a circuit where you do not brake too often: you get less of a benefit from the system here than you would on heavy-braking circuits. By way of comparison, Heikki used the system today and our specialists will analyse today’s results and decide whether we choose to continue using the system on his car for the rest of the weekend.

It will be interesting to see what they choose to do on Saturday as Kovalainen felt he could still make use of KERS:

It’s still difficult to say whether it’s an advantage to be running KERS, but I felt I was getting a laptime benefit from the system.

Morning showers are predicted for Saturday but it should be dry by the time qualifying gets underway.

Here are the times from the first two practice sessions:
First Practice

Second Practice

Sebastian Vettel showed you can still go fast in Formula One without a fancy double-decker diffuser. While car designer Adrian Newey is back at the factory figuring out how to bolt a new back end onto the car, Vettel drove the RB5 to Red Bull’s first pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Team mate Mark Webber also did well and almost looked like he was going to take pole but he will start third behind Fernando Alonso.  The Spaniard’s car was running with an interim diffuser although Renault decided not to use KERS.  In fact out of twenty cars, only three (Heidfeld’s BMW and the two McLarens) will be running a KERS device in the race.

For the first time this season there is no Brawn GP car on the front row with Barrichello starting from fourth and Jenson Button behind him in fifth.

Once Adrian Newey comes up with a new diffuser that fits the RB5 suspension, will Red Bull take over from Brawn GP as the team to beat?

2009 Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Update: Timo Glock drops five places after a gearbox change.

Image: Getty

Last month, when Williams introduced their radical ‘skate fins’ I wondered why Adrian Newey, the man who introduced shark fins to Formula One, decided to shrink the engine cover on the new Red Bull RB5 to little more than a ‘stingray barb’.

Well, it seems like he was just teasing us as Red Bull have arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya with the mother of all shark fins.  As you can see in the picture, the engine cover of the RB5 now stretches all the way back to the rear wing!  There’s a closer view at thef1.com.

The 2009 race season hasn’t even started and already the teams are seeing what kind of crazy stuff they can fit around the new aero regulations.  McLaren have installed a completely new floor with cutout sections near the rear wheels and whether the FIA will allow Williams to keep the skate fins remains to be seen.

I don’t really mind the standard shark fin and even those skate fins are ok but I think the Red Bull’s new engine cover spoils an otherwise good looking car.