Red Bull had a flying start in 2023. With five wins out of five races, they look unstoppable. However, the start of the 2022 season wasn’t as smooth because of the reliability issues that plagued the team.
Adrian Newey has recently spoken about the only team that has come so close to catching Red Bull on their winning formula. The Red Bull mastermind revealed that it was Ferrari that came so close to having the same sidepod design as the RB-18 and its successor.
As the 2022 season progressed, they set themselves above everyone else as the dominant force, thanks to their mighty sidepod concept. The only team that dared to challenge them was Ferrari, along with their F1-75.
However, the RB-18 was stronger, thanks to the near-perfect sidepod design by Newey. But, as he and the Austrian team heads to their second season after the new regulations, he remembers how close the Italian team was to nail their secret recipe.
Newey asserts Ferrari has been really close to Red Bull
Speaking at the latest episode of Talking Bull by Red Bull Racing, Newey said that the Prancing Horses were very close to matching them in the sidepod design.
The 64-year-old said while discussing the sidepod design, “In particular, I would say that we took our concept. Ferrari had a slightly different, but broadly similar concept. Mercedes had a very different concept, their so-called zero sidepod.”
Red Bull has a sidepod that is massively effective when it comes to aerodynamics. However, the sidepod doesn’t define the entire performance of a challenger, but it provides a significant advantage and that slight advantage can earn a team millions of dollars.
The sidepod is so good that even Toto Wolff publicly said there’s no shame in copying their concept after getting rid of their failed and much talked about ‘zero sidepod.’ And as per the latest reports, the German team introduced a sidepod to their W14, ahead of the Monaco GP.
Newey on how he approached the regulation changes
Formula 1 brought in new regulations at the end of the 2021 season. With new regulations in place, the teams had to build their car from scratch. This meant that the entire vehicle dynamics and data had to be rebuilt.
Talking about how the Red Bull Chief Technical Officer approached the regulation changes to build RB-18, the first generation car of the new era, he said that he was a bit depressed at first.
These photos of the RB19’s sidepod and floor aero are why Adrian Newey is unmatched at Formula 1 car design
Red Bull are so lucky to have him and I mean that with every word pic.twitter.com/Zr4eVFFaGQ
— Matt³³⁺¹⁶ | 🇲🇨MONACO🇲🇨 (@FM1_3316) February 23, 2023
Following this, he added that before developing the car, the team must decide on a route they are going to take for the development.
Newey then went on to explain how he developed the RB-18 with the help of wind tunnel, Computational Fluid Dynamics, vehicle dynamics, and mechanical considerations, and in the end, it worked out well.
