Red Bull aiming to replace wind tunnel by 2026

Construction of a new Red Bull wind tunnel will get underway next year, team principal Christian Horner has confirmed, with the team hoping to have it up and running by 2026.

The new wind tunnel is set to be built at the team’s factory in Milton Keynes and will replace the facility it currently uses near Bedford, which is over 70 years old.

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Asked about progress on the new wind tunnel at a recent Christmas lunch with media, team principal Horner said: “With wind tunnels being a thing of the future [in Formula One] by all accounts, we’ve had to go with the times and invest in a new wind tunnel. Construction will start during the course of 2024.”

The new facility is expected to be completed by 2026, but Horner doubts it will have an impact on the team’s competitiveness until 2027.

“You don’t want to introduce it in-season, you have to nominate a tunnel for the year, so it will be probably to do the ’27 car in.”

The origins of the team’s current facility date back to 1947 when the U.K.’s newly-created National Aeronautical Establishment constructed a site with four wind tunnels designed to test military and civil aircraft at a range of speeds from 80mph to Mach 5.

The tunnel that eventually fell into Red Bull’s ownership was originally conceived to test aircraft at low speed, including during take-off and landing, and was used for the development of Concorde in the 1960s, among numerous other military projects. The Jaguar F1 team acquired a 123-year lease on the building in 2003 when the tunnel’s previous occupants Arrows folded in 2002, meaning the facility was part of the deal when Red Bull bought Jaguar ahead of its F1 debut in 2005.

Red Bull’s use of the wind tunnel has been restricted by the FIA over the past year, partly due to F1’s Aerodynamic Testing Regulations [ATR], which limit testing capability the higher a team is placed in the constructors’ championship, and partly due to Red Bull’s penalty for exceeding F1’s cost cap in 2021.

The restriction imposed by the penalty lapsed in October this year, but Horner claims the nature of the aging facility near Bedford, which was once considered among the best wind tunnels in the world due to its concrete construction, has a number of quirky limitations.

“Our allowance increased a bit in October, as we’d served the penalty, so it allowed seven percent more time,” he said. “But again, that’s eight percent less than any other competitor [due to the ATR]. That’s just the way these regulations are.

“And particularly with the wind tunnel that we have, which is a Cold War relic, and not particularly efficient, particularly in cold weather, which you tend to get a bit of in the UK, we have to be very, very selective. And that’s where the team have done brilliantly well of really being selective of where we channel our development.”