RB20 appears to sport design ideas that Mercedes trialed and abandoned in 2023.
Red Bull has revealed its 2024 F1 challenger – the RB20. 2023 was a record-breaking season for the team, with the RB19 winning 21 out of 22 races. But rather than sticking to that same formula, Red Bull has opted for a design approach that Team Principal Christian Horner admits is “quite aggressive in certain areas”.
- Red Bull opts for Mercedes-inspired sidepod layout
- F1 pre-season test on February 21-23
Red Bull RB20: what’s new
Interestingly, the RB20 appears to take inspiration from Mercedes’ 2023 design direction – one that the Silver Arrows has since abandoned. The car now features heavily undercut sidepods with a vertical radiator inlet. It also features big W14-style shoulders on the engine cover.
“It’s an evolution of last year’s car. But it’s not conservative and you can see they’ve [the team] been quite aggressive in certain areas,” said Horner. “You can see all the men and women behind the scenes have been working very hard and some of the detail on the car is absolutely exquisite.”
Of course, Red Bull is still playing its cards close to its chest, with only limited angles of the RB20 shown. Even the launch car present physically at the event sported a few changes compared to the renders released online, including the presence of sidepod inlets. It is entirely possible that the RB20 will look very different at the Bahrain pre-season test next week.
“You have to keep pushing. We’ve made some improvements to the car in all areas – mechanical, vehicle dynamics and aerodynamics. Is that enough? Who knows, we shall have to see,” said chief technical officer Adrian Newey.
Red Bull 2024 F1 drivers
Red Bull sticks with its tried-and-tested pairing of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez this year. Verstappen, of course, will be chasing his fourth straight F1 title. “For me, at the moment, it’s more about just looking forward to Bahrain, get testing, get comfortable with the car, understand what it needs and just work from there. It’s such a long season; we just try to hit the ground running as good as we can,” said Verstappen.
F1 pre-season testing gets underway in Bahrain on February 21-23 before the season kicks off at the same venue on February 29-March 2.
Also see:
Ferrari 2024 F1 racer revealed: What’s new
Mercedes 2024 F1 car revealed: What’s new