Newey fears 2013 start compromised

05/01/2013

Adrian Newey fears that the down-to-the-wire title fight in 2012 will impact the start of his team's 2013 campaign.

As the Austrian team fought to stave off a Herculean effort from Fernando Alonso and Ferrari, not to mention McLaren and Lotus, it was forced to concentrate fully on 2012 whilst those teams no longer in the fight were able to focus on 2013. As a result, Newey fears Red Bull will start the new season on the back foot.

"We had to keep pushing which made it difficult to introduce developments and simultaneously develop next year's car," he told the Sun. "This has compromised the timescales of the new car more than we would have liked."

Admitting that 2012 was "one of the toughest seasons I've been through," Newey also fears that 2013 will be further impacted by the raft of new regulations for 2014, not least the introduction of 1.6 litre turbocharged engines.

Indeed, such is the impact of the team's down-to-the-wire battle, which saw it win both titles for the third successive season, there is speculation that the new RB9 might not be fully ready for the first test which gets underway at Jerez on February 5.