Red Bull revealed its 2024 car, the RB20, on February 15. However, they cleverly managed the angles and the lighting to avoid leaking any design profiles until testing in Bahrain. Resultantly, F1 experts are speculating over the available visuals and what Adrian Newey wants to achieve with those.
As much as it is hard to believe, Red Bull did not start the ground-effect regulation era on the best of notes. The car had weight issues that took time to resolve in 2022. Taking full advantage of the situation, Charles Leclerc won two of the first three races to gain a 46-point advantage over the eventual champion.
While the team’s eventual success may have covered up that initial failure, F1 tech expert Craig Scarborough believes Red Bull is still struggling with that problem. However, they have perhaps found a way to deal with the overweight issues through some aerodynamic craftsmanship.
In a recent episode on Peter Windsor’s YouTube channel, Scarborough said, “The reason I think they had to go this shape is because of the radiator package. We know that Red Bull struggled with weight in the last couple of years and they are the only package where they retained big air-to-air turbo intercoolers in the side pods.”
While Scarborough maintained the reality can only be known once the bodywork comes off, he did remark, “Red Bull have these really bulky intercoolers. I would guess that rather than going with a water-to-air setup, that is, probably aerodynamically slightly better, but it is heavier.”
However, it is pertinent to note that Red Bull is already looking to evolve their side pod design further. Surprisingly, their aim for their side pod seems more towards a concept that Mercedes tried and failed with previously.
Is Red Bull heading for doom?
Red Bull created ripples as images surfaced of narrow horizontal side pods. At first sight, the grainy images suggest the design might be similar to the one Mercedes sported for a year and a half. The concept, infamously dubbed the ‘zero pod’ design, failed to work in 2022 and 2023. Red Bull, however, is ready to incorporate it into the RB20 and make it work.
After enduring with it until the mid-season break last year, the Silver Arrows decided to scrap the concept in favor of a more conventional side pod design. Only Mercedes engineers know if it was their initial design that hampered their performance or not.
The only thing that is worth noting is that there was an immediate uptick in performance after they got rid of the old design. But will Red Bull struggle the way Mercedes did by adopting a similar design this year?
It seems unlikely that the Milton Keynes outfit will struggle for two reasons. Firstly, Red Bull’s rest of the aerodynamic package, at least visually, looks similar to the older car’s. Secondly, the readings in the wind tunnel are likely to show a positive picture.
