Red Bull says it has “pushed the boundaries” with the design of its new Formula One car, the RB20, as it prepares to defend its position as the dominant force in Formula One for a third year running.
The reigning champions revealed their new car on Thursday, six days ahead of pre-season testing, although much of the focus at the launch event was diverted by an ongoing internal investigation into team principal Christian Horner.
Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey insisted the new car is an evolution of last year’s RB19, but a number of visual design changes — including a couple of features reminiscent of last year’s Mercedes — suggest the team is still finding significant gains in its wind tunnel.
“We can see rival cars have been influenced by RB19, and we’re expecting other teams to converge,” Horner said.
“I think the team have done a wonderful job on RB20, they haven’t sat on their laurels and you can see that they’ve pushed the boundaries with the car. We’ll only see when we get on track what the relative pecking order is for the start of the season.
“There’s some great innovation on the car as well which will no doubt get scrutinized over the coming weeks. Creativity has been strong in the team and you can see that in some of the solutions that they’ve come up with. It’s not a conservative evolution, there’s some great innovation on this car.”
Unlike the RB19, the new RB20 features vertical sidepods inlets, similar in shape to those on last year’s Mercedes W14. However, where Mercedes persisted with its now infamous ‘zero-pod’ design, Red Bull has retained conventional looking sidepods with deep undercuts.
The RB20 also features a bulge running the length of the engine cover under the car’s main Red Bull motif, which was another prominent design feature of the cooling arrangement on last year’s Mercedes.
When it was put to reigning champion Max Verstappen that there were some “Mercedes-style” ideas in the RB20’s design, the reigning champion said: “I would still call it a Red Bull style, but I know what you mean.”
Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez added: “It just shows the hunger that we have. We have such a dominant car last year that you wouldn’t expect us to change the concept that much. I think it is really brave from Red Bull to do.”
Asked about the RB20’s similarities with recent Mercedes cars, team boss Horner added: “It’s not tactical, it’s based on performance and what we’re seeing through our simulation tools.
“Obviously the car looks quite visibly different in certain areas to last year. Only the stopwatch will tell but in the virtual world we wouldn’t have committed it to design if we didn’t feel it was better.”
Verstappen, who is aiming for a fourth consecutive drivers’ title this year, said he first saw the final designs for the new car at the end of last season.
“I’m quite happy with the direction that they chose,” Verstappen said. “I saw the drawings I think in Abu Dhabi, the last race, I was like, ‘wow, that’s quite different in a way.’ And they’ve not been conservative, let’s say like that.
“I think what I like about the team is that we had a great package, but they took the chance to really go all out, I would say and try to make it better. Of course, time will tell if it’s really, really good.
“But from what I see within the team everyone is just happy with what they have achieved in the winter. But then again, we don’t know. We can’t control what the other people did.”
Horner suspects a repeat of last year’s dominance, when Red Bull won all bar one race, will not be possible again this year.
“I think to set a target of winning all the races would be very difficult. I mean, we achieved 21 out of 22 last year and only Singapore got away from us, so technically we can improve, but logically there’s going to be convergence with stable regulations.”
