Red Bull have simulated an entire British Grand Prix in their factory 'mission control room' but refused to say on Wednesday who had won.Standing in the technical nerve centre of the Renault-powered Formula One team, principal Christian Horner was prepared to divulge only that Red Bull had not started on pole position in last week's virtual race.Red Bull romped to a one-two at Silverstone last year with Germany's Sebastian Vettel leading from pole to chequered flag.This year's race promises to be closer, with McLaren's two championship-leading British world champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button handed a big upgrade in their quest for a home victory.Most teams carry out race simulations before a grand prix weekend and Horner said Red Bull did them once or twice a month as well as during the winter break."It's a virtual race," he said. "The team manager even has to 'talk' to (race director) Charlie Whiting, even though he is probably sat on a beach somewhere. It's as lifelike as we can get it."With teams strictly limited in the number of staff (45) they can take to races as part of a cost-cutting agreement, more and more is being done with engineers and data analysts back at the factory.Red Bull have an operations room with big screens showing the same data provided to the pit wall crew during a race weekend."During a grand prix weekend it will be packed in here," said Horner, gesturing at the rows of seats and screens. "They've got a live link to the strategists on the pit wall and at the end of a session they can just go back to their desks."The Briton said Red Bull, winners of four of the nine races so far this season, had won more of the virtual ones than they had lost."Istanbul we won on the simulator but obviously the simulation wasn't for the drivers getting together," he said of a race that saw Vettel and Australian Mark Webber collide while running one-two.The two drivers were both at the factory on Wednesday, spending time in the racecar simulator getting to grips with the new Silverstone layout that they will get a first taste of on Friday.The Australian said their relationship remained "pretty good"."If Seb was drowning in the ocean I'd go in and help him out," he said. "We don't hate each other's guts, I didn't push him in...(but) it's not easy to have a beautiful fuzzy warm relationship when he's clearly a competitor."(For more news on Reuters India, click http://in.reuters.com)News posted by www.newsinfoline.com
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