MOTORSPORT: Webber gets his new wheels

The new Red Bull F1 car that Mark Webber and world champion Sebastian Vettel will race this year has been launched, and already it's the pacesetter

RB7 has Pirelli tyres, adjustable rear wing, KERS - and pace
As Red Bull Racing unveiled its new RB7 car for this year's Formula One world championship, the team's Australian driver Mark Webber said he was hungrier for success than in his best season last year and would be tackling  his next challenge "head-on".

"I just missed out in the end last year so, if the package does come together again this year, and the chance of another run at the title is there, then we'll do everything in our power to take it," Webber said.

He and 23-year-old German teammate Sebastian Vettel, F1's youngest world champion, took the covers off the Renault-engined RB7 at the Ricardo Torno permanent circuit in Valencia, Spain, just 90 minutes before pre-season testing began there.

Vettel then clocked the fastest lap of the day as seven of F1's 12 teams debuted their 2011 cars and began getting to grips with tyres from new supplier Pirelli, which has replaced Bridgestone, and driver-adjustable rear wings and the return of kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS), which give a brief power boost at the push of a button.

The next three places on the timesheet were filled by 2010 cars -- the quickest of them a Mercedes-powered Force India driven by Nico Hulkenberg, the young German squeezed out of his Williams race drive and who has become Force India's reserve driver.

Ferrari's new F150 did the most laps, 97 (four more than Vettel), and was fifth fastest for the day in the hands of Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso.

Alonso called it "a positive day, with no mechanical problems at all".

"We keep discovering about the new rules, with the rear wing and the KERS, to get used to the system. The tyres degrade a lot and are not very consistent at the moment," he said.

The new McLaren, MP4-26, won't be seen for another 10 days.

The main talking point of the launches so far has been the exhaust system on the cars of what was the Renault factory team but which is now controlled by European investment group Genii and backed by Proton-owned Lotus.

The exhausts on what is called the Lotus Renault GP exit from the front of the sidepods rather than the rear.

Another talking point has been the team's black and gold livery -- the colour scheme Lotus ran for much of the 1970s and '80s when it was sponsored by the John Player cigarette brand -- with suggestions it may be in breach of anti-tobacco rules.

The new Mercedes MGPW02 had a hydraulics problem, allowing Nico Rosberg to do only nine laps in the morning while Michael Schumacher, now 42, had a brief run in the afternoon.

"I'm very optimistic about this ... we (Mercedes and him) are really building up to something big together," the seven-time world champion and winner of 91 GPs said ahead of the second season of his comeback.

The 20-race season, the longest in F1 history, starts in Bahrain on March 13, with the Australian GP two weeks later in Melbourne.

Webber will take over Red Bull testing duties from Vettel in the middle of the second day at Valencia tonight.

The Australian vowed that, after four wins last year -- including the Monaco and British GPs -- and finishing third in the championship, he was "going to do the best I can" this year.

"The fact that I had my best season last year does make you hungrier," he said.

"I want to start the season better than I did last year as well."

Vettel obviously is confident of retaining his drivers' title and of Red Bull repeating its constructors' championship success, although he understated it at the launch.

"I think we need to focus again and motivation is not a problem," he said.

"It is a difficult situation we are in now, probably more difficult than we were in last year, where we just said, 'OK, let's go for the title'.

"This year is a different story. We want to try to defend it but we have to develop from how good we were last year. Otherwise we do a step back and the others pass us.

"If we just approach now saying, 'OK, let's do the same as last year', we would not move forward."

Adrian Newey, the design genius who has created world title-winning cars for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, said of the RB7's debut: "It's always a special moment when a car runs for the first time.

"The big challenge for us this year was the reintroduction of the KERS system.

"It's always a challenge to find solutions, which don't compromise the aerodynamics of the car.

"This season, with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all having KERS, we need to get it to work, simply for performance off the line."

Newey said a new car was "always the balance of research time versus development time - and that's both from the performance and reliability point of view".

 "I was keen to get the car out for the first test this year because of the change in tyres," he said.

"I want us to learn about the Pirellis as quickly as possible and therefore give us the maximum amount of time to adapt the car if necessary.

"I think it's one of the beauties and great things about F1 that there is always the possibility that somebody else will come out with a clever idea that the rest of us haven't thought of.

"I think it's essential that should be part of F1 ... in that sense it's a period of nervousness for us, but also a period of excitement."

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner was confident that "over the course of the season we are well equipped".

"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."

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