We are sure that you are familiar with the concept of a steering wheel (if not, please do NOT get behind one), but the wheels here at Red Bull Racing Australia are taken to the next level, naturally.
With all the bells and whistles you can imagine, we need to make sure that all of our drivers are in control of their vehicles when traveling at 250kmph – plus.
Now, this certainly isn’t one of those situations where you just go pressing buttons because you can, each one has its own specific job.
Check out the diagram* below. (*banana peels and wings may or may not be real)
Red buttons: Drink – Typically water mixed with electrolytes, however, we cannot confirm or deny a sneaky Red Bull now and again.
Purple button: Headlights on/off – Fairly stock standard.
Orange button: Alarm acknowledge – The dash and shift lights are fully programmable and adjustable, as are the alarms. For example, an alarm will register if the engine water is getting too hot, that way the driver knows he needs fresh air for the engine. This can happen if they have been sitting on the tail of the car in front for a while, which means they will have to pull out of their slipstream and get clean air. If they have no car in front and this alarm is coming up, then we have other issues…
Yellow button: Display page scroll – Similar concept to the alarm acknowledge. At different times of the race, the drivers want to look at different things. We also have a page for the mechanics for when they are running up the cars in the garage, but this has lots of information on it that the drivers don’t generally need while racing. So just like having different tabs or pages in your internet browser, the dash has different pages.
White button: Flip display pages – Assists in flipping through all the details.
Black Button: Mario Kart style bananas – Yet to be used. Just be aware we are packing heat.
Blue button: Windscreen Wipers – A must have. We wouldn’t have made it through the likes of Clipsal this year without them.
Smaller red button: Handbrake – to assist in mad skids braking.
Green Button: Emergency wings – they help when that little extra push is needed (think J-Dub on the last lap of Phillip Island last year passing Frosty).
