When Red Bull unveiled the RB20 last week, the successor to last season’s RB19, many questions arose.
Mainly, what were they cooking with the side pods?
After all, the RB20 rides on some pretty big tires. The RB19 is one of the most dominant cars in F1 history as the team won all but one grand prix a year ago and the RB19 led Red Bull to a dominant performance in the constructors’ championship. It was recorded as. Max Verstappen wins his third consecutive drivers’ title.
But looking at last week’s RB20, there were more questions than answers. What did they do with the sidepods and air intakes?
We already have the answer.
When the RB20 hit the Bahrain track, the design split the intake into two, with thin vertical and horizontal intakes along the sides of the RB20 and a pair of intakes behind the driver. has become clear.
F1 technical analyst Albert Fabrega pointed out the design on social media on Wednesday:
These are the air intakes located at the back of the cockpit. Now let’s take a look at the thin horizontal and vertical inlets on the side of the RB20.
At the RB20’s launch, team principal Christian Horner said the 2024 Challenger is not a “conservative evolution.”
“This car also has some great innovations and will no doubt be under scrutiny over the coming weeks,” Horner said. said last week. “The team’s creativity was strong, and you can see that by looking at some of the solutions they came up with. This is not a conservative evolution, there is great innovation in this car.”
As for the situation, the RB20 appeared to give Verstappen trouble early in Wednesday morning’s session, but the team switched to medium tires and the defending champion finished the session ahead of the timesheets.
Pre-season test lap times have to be taken with a grain of salt, but it looks like 2024 will start the same way 2023 ended.
