Red Bull announce RB6 debut date

Red Bull Renault had already confirmed that they would sit out the first pre-season tests which begin next Monday. Today the Milton Keynes based team confirmed the new RB6 chassis will launch at Jerez on Wednesday 10th February.

"We wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible to research and develop the car," said chief technical officer Adrian Newey. "We felt that because the car is evolutionary, we hopefully didn’t need to be out early to establish the basic concept of the car. We wanted to allow ourselves as much time as possible to research it."

Team principal Christian Horner is also unconcerned about missing the early pre-season running.

“Due to the limit on tyres available to the teams, there’s no point in burning up engine mileage and rubber on an RB5," he explained. "We’d rather use the tyres for quality testing at the three tests that we have confirmed we’ll run at, starting with the first test in Jerez.”

Red Bull hope to hit the ground running and build on their impressive 2009 season that saw them finish second to Brawn Mercedes with 153.5 points.