MILTON KEYNES, UK – Well, it's finally out there, the RB9 has poked its nosecone into the public domain. Adrian stood behind it, Christian explained why it's more purple than its predecessors (that's thanks to our new title and technical partner INFINITI, if you haven't been paying attention) and the drivers, as is their way, did their duty in talking about the car while making it perfectly clear that they really, really just want to buckle-in and drive the thing.
The big launch used to be de rigeur in F1 but recently they've fallen out of favor. The extra races crammed into the calendar and the distances travelled at the end of the year have made the off-season mercilessly busy. It's a very real challenge just getting a car into good enough shape to be launched. You can imagine cars being rolled out from behind a curtain with mechanics still frantically bolting on the back end.
We've just managed to sneak a launch in this year but the transporters were trundling out of the factory bound for the first test pretty much before the guests had left.
While it more normal to simply push the cars out of the garage at the first test, have the drivers pose for photographs, and then get on with it, it's good to have a launch if you can. The effort that goes into designing, fabricating and building a car is enormous, so giving it a coming-out party is positive for everyone in the team. It's a milestone worth celebrating.
We did the deed in a warehouse next to the factory, decking it out with a stage, a PA and lots of space heaters. Martin Brundle MC'd for us, the media came, as did our partners, sponsors, some top-notch competition winners and lots and lots of people from the team. Sadly, we couldn't fit everyone in, so had to raffle tickets in the factory. Everyone's flat out at this time of year and time off is a rare commodity – but we still had twice as many people wanting to come in on a Sunday as we had space for.
Having set the launch up and cued the dramatic music it would be great if the new car came with an all-new set of bells and whistles but no one this year is going to be reinventing the wheel or any other part of the car for that matter. The rules haven't changed that much, the RB8 was evolving right up until the end of November and the laws of physics haven't altered in the last eight weeks.
The design team still managed to pull a smallish bunny out of a large-ish hat by showing off an interesting nose cone that's somewhere between fully-stepped and fully-pretty but that's about it. The really interesting conversations will come next week when the RB9 fires up.
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