» And in a change up for the books…

Red Bull Racing has announced that it is on track to have its 2011 championship contender – to be dubbed the RB7 – up and running in time for the inaugural 2011 pre-season test at Valencia, scheduled for the start of February.

Previous seasons have seen the team opt to delay the running of its new challenger in order to get as much extra development time as possible in the team’s wind tunnel.

But Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has confirmed that his team will reverse the trend of previous years.

“We’re on schedule for first test. It will be extremely tight to be there and ready on time, but that is our aim. We will be confirming our plans, and details about the launch, soon,” he said.

The reason for the change in policy is the team wanting to assess how its new car interacts with the new-for-2011 Pirelli tyres.

Teams such as Force India, Virgin Racing and HRT have already confirmed they will be present at the first test using their 2010 cars, while McLaren recently announced it would run an interim-spec car at the first test.

[Original image via LAT]