thAfter three days of pre-season testing, Red Bull seems to have started as it finished last season. They again showed their strength in Bahrain.
Based on the three days of running at the Sakhir circuit, the new RB20 seems another shape blade to be utilised by Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman impressed the field with the consistency shown in his long runs. In his hands, the car produced at Milton Keynes is clearly a sizable step forward.
“The car has good potential to extract. We will work on this over the course of the season ”
The RB20 is extreme in every area, but it’s just a base to work on until 2025
Red Bull’s 2024 challenger is very different from last year’s already dominant RB19.
If the RB19 was a true evolution of the RB18 of 2022, the RB20 is an even more extreme project. In some ways, this year’s car is revolutionary – as described by Helmut Marko:
“I wouldn’t call this year’s car a development of the car from last year. It is rather a thorough revolution.”
Newey and Waché ‘s car was surprising for how it “changed its skin” in many areas. They clearly took inspiration from solutions discarded by other teams.
The hood with the “cannons” is the most striking example of how Red Bull has carefully looked at the work of other teams (in this case, Mercedes) to develop their own concept.
The half-a-second (roughly) advantage that Max and the RB19 gave to the competition last year allowed the team to focus on the 2024 car in advance.
A convergence of ideas from the Austrian team’s rivals pushed their technicians to be very aggressive. Their newly made RB20 has been designed to widen the advantage enjoyed last season.
The technical leap made by Ferrari, approximately 1.4 since early 2023, was anticipated by Red Bull.
Red Bull’s RB19 car concept with the Hungarian updates had no greater margin for development. Therefore, taking some ideas to the extreme and completely changing others was necessary.
So, Red Bull decided to take a risk. A calculated risk, however.
The RB20 thus represents a new basis on which to work to extract potential, as Verstappen himself candidly admitted during the tests in Bahrain.
Red Bull has also changed their braking system by adopting the new Brembo discs. This is another example of how Red Bull did not rest on their laurels in 2023.
The internal mechanics will be an obstacle for those who want to propose the “new” Red Bull concept
Renovated on the outside, revolutionized on the inside. We can briefly describe Newey-Waché’s new creature in this way.
During the tests, we could see how much the new Red Bull has changed its internal mechanics, with a relocation of the entire cooling layout.
The gearbox oil radiator remains on the top part of the Power Unit. Meanwhile, the “V-shaped arrangement” of the exchangers inside the sides has not been seen in F1 for a few years.
Newey and colleagues are no strangers to taking up concepts from the past and reworking them. Low in the sidepods are the CACs (Charge Air Coolers). Honda is the only engine supplier to cool with air-to-air exchangers.
In this sense, at Red Bull Power Trains, other manufacturers who use water-air exchangers have focused on lightness to cool the turbo.
The exchangers behind the driver are instead used for cooling the hybrid part (ERS), while the thin and vertical intake under the bellies could serve to energize the flow between the belly exchangers further.
By rearranging the radiant masses in Red Bull, they were able to exaggerate the undercut further, substantially reversing the shape of the belly sockets compared to 2023.
The cooling layout is one of the main reasons why it will be difficult for other teams to “copy ” from Red Bull again in the current season.
Listening to the opinions of some technicians involved in the work, redesigning the cooling system starting in March would take until October.
This is why, in the event, everything could be transferred to 2025.
This limitation also includes the Racing Bulls. Despite sharing much of Red Bull’s mechanics and the Power Unit, the cooling system remains one of those parts whose intellectual property is not transferable to the other teams.
In short, Red Bull is again one step ahead.
Author: Rosario Giuliana
Translation: Jaden Diaz-Ndisang
