F1 News: Adrian Newey Delivers Blow To Rivals - "RB20 Well Suited To All Circuits"
Red Bull's chief technical officer and aero expert Adrian Newey has expressed that the team's 2024 challenger, the RB20, is not a concept that has ventured into unknown territory but, it is a "third generation evolution" of the 2022 car, the RB18, that helped Max Verstappen win the first title in the ground effect era.
Key Takeaways:
- Red Bull's Adrian Newey describes the RB20 as a "third-generation evolution" of the RB18, emphasizing its continuity despite visual changes.
- The RB20's design, reminiscent of Mercedes's W14, sparks curiosity about potential new concepts.
- Newey clarifies that while there are visible changes for aerodynamic gains, the RB20's core architecture remains largely unchanged. The team focuses on creating a versatile car, particularly aiming to improve performance on maximum downforce street tracks after a disappointing showing in Singapore last year.
Red Bull Press Image
With the Milton Keynes outfit winning 21 out of the 22 Grands Prix last season, courtesy of Verstappen and his RB19, it was expected that the 2024 car would be similar-looking to the 2023 car.
Surprisingly though, when Red Bull launched the RB20 a few weeks ago, the car's design philosophy looked similar to Mercedes's outgoing W14 F1 car, which wasn't particularly famous for winning races.
Thus, raising several eyebrows, many were curious to know about the RB20 and if Red Bull had experimented with a new concept while veering off into an unknown territory. Revealing the real picture, Newey confirmed that the RB20 is an evolution of the old concept, as a major part of the car underneath the external bodywork remains the same.
He also emphasized that there are subtle bits on the car that have helped improve performance but have gone unnoticed by onlookers. When asked on the F1 Nation podcast if the RB20 was a step into the unknown compared to the outgoing RB19, he answered:
“No, not at all.
“I mean, the underlying architecture of the car is the third generation evolution of what started as RB18.
“Where we carry everything, apart from the radiators, they’ve changed, but apart from that, the layout of the front suspension, the rear suspension, the gearbox, casing, et cetera, it’s a third evolution of RB18.
“The bits that are visible, and they’ve obviously caused quite a lot of attention, obviously, we’re pursuing aerodynamic gains there, but the visual change is actually much, much larger than the performance change you get from that and there are other much more subtle bits, that people haven’t noticed, that are probably responsible for a bigger gain.”
After missing out on that one victory in Singapore last year, Newey revealed that the primary goal of the team was to design an all-rounder car to improve performance on maximum downforce street circuits. He added:
“That’s what we’ve tried to achieve, is a car that is reasonably well suited to all circuits.
“I think, typically, last year are the circuits that we had less of an advantage on were the maximum downforce street tracks.
“Singapore, obviously, we made famously made a bit of a mess of, underperformed to what we could have achieved – I think we could have certainly achieved podiums there had we got our act together a bit better.
“But it certainly is true to say that those circuits are the ones that we probably have less advantage on, but as long as we’re not disastrous on them, then maybe that’s good enough.”