Red Bull Racing’s rapid rise to the top of Formula One is a case study in efficient management as well as innovative technology. However, those few tenths that make all the difference are not simply a case of ultra-efficient aerodynamics and blown diffusers. Hexagon Metrology has been closely involved with the team for several years, driving down inspection time and helping the team take the car to the limits of design.

In 2009 Red Bull Racing emerged as the team to beat as it closed the gap to eventual champion Brawn GP towards the end of the season. In 2010 however, leading performance together with relentless improvement as well as a touch of genius from chief technical officer Adrian Newey has seen the team go one better. This time around the team secured the Constructor’s Championship with a dominant 1-2 result at the penultimate race in São Paulo, with the Driver’s Championship going down to the wire the following weekend in Abu Dhabi, where Sebastian Vettel stormed to victory while the other main title contenders, teammate Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, struggled in traffic.

In many ways, the 2009 season was one of transition as new regulations swept away the knowledge and data built up by all the teams. The traditional title rivals of McLaren and Ferrari, their resources stretched by a Drivers Championship that had come down to a nailbiting final corner the previous season and a large commitment to KERS technology, could not mount a title challenge. Brawn GP by contrast, had enjoyed the luxury of an early switch of focus to its 2009 contender.

This year however there could be no such excuses, and with four drivers heading to the final event in Abu Dhabi fighting for the title, this season has been incredibly close. However, as much as it has been about the best of the best going wheel to wheel in one of the most intense competitions for some years, it has also been one of relentless innovation that has seen F-Ducts and blown diffusers enter the common F1 vocabulary.

The tight nature of both championships resulting from plenty of drama on track disguises the fact that Red Bull Racing’s RB6 challenger has been the fastest package throughout most race weekends. It is easy to cite the technical leadership of Adrian Newey as the critical factor here and there is no doubt that he has propelled the team forward at an accelerated pace (under his leadership an average part is now typically designed and produced in just 60% of the time than before his arrival in 2006), but there is also now an underlying culture of consistency and confidence throughout the team that given its current rate of development, is an ominous sign for its competitors.

Partners in progress

One aspect of the team’s success is not only the culture engendered within its own staff, but what has effectively become the extended team in the form of what it calls ‘Innovation Partners’. Of these partners, Hexagon Metrology has enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the team. Many processes at the design and manufacturing arm, Red Bull Technology based in Milton Keynes, now rely on the two Leica Absolute Tracker AT901-Long Range laser trackers provided by Hexagon Metrology, with a further two at its wind tunnel in Bedford. This is the latest version of the portable measurement system which when used with Leica’s T-Probe can measure within a 30m volume.

The team’s quality manager Chris Charnley and business development manager Steve Nevey are responsible for the partnership, having invested in the equipment in 2006. Previously, there had only been fixture checking of the car, with basic hard gauging in place to ensure it complied with FIA regulations. “We originally bought one just to do car checks,” Mr Charnley explains, “but since then we’ve discovered the applications are endless and it’s one of the tools that has been in constant use. In terms of the improvement in measuring accuracies, we’ve moved a decimal place using this system.

“I always make sure we do significant tests before we buy any equipment to make sure it meets our strict criteria and I need to be sure that whatever we’re using is giving us the right data so I can be confident in it to deliver. This is important not only to ensure the cars are accurate to the CAD but also because there are very few repeats, so we could easily be wrong and remain ignorant of any errors. We also need to have correlation with all the systems we’re using so that when we design something in CAD, and take it through CFD and all the manufacturing processes, the end result is predictable.

“The usability of the T-Probe made it a no-brainer. If you try to do what we’re doing with a sphere reflector, then you’re going to struggle, but the flexibility of the T-Probe has enabled us reach areas that other systems struggle to get to. With the Absolute Tracker we can check the whole car from one position.”

The development race

Minus the engine, a modern F1 car can comprise of over 6,000 individual components with the facility producing many thousands each month. To give an idea of the rate of development, wing designs are now typically circuit specific, with the team usually taking various options to every event. Furthermore, with little resource for quality checks at the circuit, engineers need to be able to trust their data to make reliable recordings and informed decisions on track.

Working in this high pressure environment, Mr Charnley describes himself first and foremost as a time engineer, his job being to compress processing as much as possible. It is quite normal, he reports, for new parts fresh from the factory to be rushed to a circuit as qualifying starts in order to be on the car for subsequent sessions.

“Many companies can make what we’re making, but very few can do it in these timescales,” he describes, and in this respect the Leica trackers have allowed some important savings to be made. Most parts produced at the site and at its subcontractors are checked against its CAD database, and this includes moulds and patterns. An average pattern measured on a CMM would take around two hours whereas the tracker can obtain the same information in 20 minutes. Similarly, model set-up times of two hours in the wind tunnel have now been slashed to 30 minutes using the technology. The information gathered in the tracker can also readily be used to produce colour maps in the supplied Metrolog XG software so that parts can be immediately passed or failed.

Maximising innovation

One feature that has made a big difference is ‘PowerLock’, a system whereby if the beam is broken, the tracker can automatically find the T-Probe without the engineer having to relocate it. This allows engineers to move the probe across complex features, especially the rear wing assembly, and for other staff to move around the shopfloor freely without moving the machine. “This has been a massive step forward,” continues Mr Charnley. “It may only take a minute but if that’s a minute 20 times a week, that’s 20 minutes we’ve saved and 20 minutes really does matter in this sport.”

Another important application has been to balance the cars dimensionally, which as Mr Nevey describes, has been one of the RB6’s main strengths. So much so in fact, that for a while it was believed by some in the paddock that it had been running a cleverly disguised active ride height system, banned by FIA regulations. “Very simply, it’s just extremely well balanced aerodynamically. One of the key areas for aerodynamic gain is how well you can use the Venturi effect under the car, but going round the track where the car is always pitching and rolling, you can never be at the optimum height the whole time.”

Elsewhere, improvement has come down to nothing more than good old fashioned Lean thinking. Mr Charnley continues: “We now have inspectors in the manufacturing department working with the guys that make the components so when it comes to the quality stage there are very few problems, which has helped us enormously.”

Mr Nevey adds: “It’s also about everyone knowing exactly what’s required of them and how they fit into the whole process. Our team has been stable for some time now, but this has been a conscious process and we’ve spent a good deal of time doing this. Two years ago this facility was a construction site while we were optimising the whole team for the foreseeable future. Once that was done, we could focus entirely on making a fast racing car, and that has made a real difference.”

Beyond support

Hexagon Metrology has just signed a three year extension to its Red Bull Racing contract, which UK sales manager for portable metrology Steve Shickell puts down to its close ties to the team as well as the mutual development opportunities that the partnership brings. “The trackers were a paradigm shift for the team when they were first bought in so we had to manage that upgrade. Even now we’re regularly on-site, helping, training and training some more. Ultimately I want their guys to be more skilled than mine, only then I’ve achieved what I set out to do. Time means money and more importantly places on the grid. If something goes wrong, we feel the pain, and our engineers will be shouting at the television on race day as events unfold.”

Mr Charnley concludes: “It’s not that Hexagon Metrology has employees dedicated to us, it’s the whole company. I can ring anyone up and whoever that is responds and finds the right person, because they all understand. We don’t get service like we get from Hexagon from all our providers. Even next day service from an F1 perspective is disappointing, but we have phoned them at 9 o’ clock on a Friday night before and they are willing to come in and fix any problems.”

This partnership has also pushed development for both parties and as the Red Bull Racing engineers have become accustomed to the product, they are now suggesting ways in which the internal components can be improved. According to Mr Shickell, the team is now getting more from the tracker than it was ever designed for, and is directly involved in the development of future products.

With everything now in place, there is little reason to suspect that Red Bull Racing will slow down in 2011. With the exception of a few high profile engine related failures and driver accidents, this season has demonstrated that it can not only reach the front, but stay there through predictable and consistent development. When F1 roars back into life at the first official test session in Valencia on 1st February, all eyes will now be on the RB7 to see whether it can maintain the advantage.

Hexagon Metrology will be exhibiting at the Autosport International exhibition from 13-14 January 2011.

www.hexagonmetrology.co.uk
www.redbullracing.com