Much of the paddock talk as the Formula One 2023 came to a close was around how the teams would develop their cars for the coming championship. Mercedes decided they would ditch the concept of their failed W13/14 cars as Toto Wolff declared.

“We are changing the concept,” he told Motorsport.com. ”We are completely moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow. I mean, literally, there’s almost every component that’s being changed because only by doing that, I think we have a chance.”

 

 

 

Ferrari “95% new car”

Lewis Hamilton’s feedback after two rounds this year suggests this was not in fact the case. When asked how the car felt following his P9 in Jeddah last time out, the seven times world champion seemed resigned to his fate. “It was similar to previous years,” Hamilton shrugged.

Ferrari too claimed they were ditching the platform they had run in 2022/23 and focusing on a new car design philosophy to iron out their weakness in tyre wear.

At the Ferrari pre-Christmas bash, Fred Vasseur was asked how the new 2024 challenger was coming along. “We are changing 95% of the components of the car. Perhaps you can consider that it’s a revolution,” the Scuderia boss revealed to the Italian press in attendance.

McLaren by way of comparison were believed to planning an evolution of their car which over the final two thirds of the season scored more points than Ferrari or Mercedes following their big upgrade which came at the Austrian Grand Prix.

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Mystery surrounds RB20

Red Bull too were expected to evolve their all conquering RB19 which win 21 out of 22 races, with Ferrari and Carlos Sainz preventing a clean sweep at the night race held in the Singapore city state.

Yet when the car built in Milton Keynes was revealed, it had elements of the failed Mercedes design incorporated. Adrian Newey and his crew had made the decision, they had gone as far as they could with their design concept and needed a new platform for this year.

There was an element of mystery around how the car worked as F1 analysts set to work to understand the Newey RB20 creation. And now Sky F1 expert pit lane reporter, Ted Kravitz, reveals it has taken some weeks for him to understand what Red Bull are trying to achieve.

On this weeks British broadcaster’s podcast, Kravitz reveals his initial impressions were clouded by the lack of opportunity to see the detail of the Milton Keynes creation.

Mercedes brain drain continues

 

 

 

F1 analyst says Red Bull “makes sense”

“I didn’t get to see prolonged shots on TV, my job keeps me in the pit lane,” he said. “I saw it in testing on TV monitors. Even on a not-very-good TV to study what they were doing, the whole package of the RB20 makes more sense to me now.”

Kravitz says his focus was initially on the “vertical inlets and the F18 Concorde-style air intakes under the crash structure,” but he was struggling to understand why Newey appeared to mimic failed ideas from Mercedes.

“The more [I look the more] it makes sense,” observed the veteran Brit. However, he believes interpreting the design as a better version of Mercedes old ideas, “is a red herring.” 

“Yes, they are cool. But it’s all just to make the mother and father of all undercuts underneath that side pod, and on top of the floor,” continues Kravitz.

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Even more stable than 2023

The undercut will feed air into the floor of the car where since the big new regulation change of 2022 is where the teams now hope to achieve around 75% of their downforce.

“I’d love to see the bottom of the floor. Hopefully for Max and Checo’s sake they don’t have a crash so we don’t get pictures. It must have been an area of huge development, as well,” Ted added.

Of course Sergio Perez famously trashed his RB19 in Monaco and the infamous sky scraper cranes in the principality lifted the car a hundred feet in the air allowing hundreds of photographs of the design to be taken.

Kravitz goes on to analyse the design and says it gives the RB20 a more “stable and efficient aero platform [which] leads to more optimised tyre wear. Max said it is really good on tyre wear.

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RB20: “car for all tracks and conditions”

“It is a car for all tracks, all conditions,” announced Kravitz in an ominous prediction for the rest of the F1 competition.

Of course Red Bull were famously undone in Singapore as the RB19 proved not to not be a car for all tracks and conditions. In qualifying two both Max and Checo failed to post a time good enough to progress, which was further embarrassing as rookie Liam Lawson in the sister team car pipped Max to P10 by by a gap of the finest of margins – just 0.007 seconds.

With unusually poor tyre wear, Max and Sergio fell to fifteenth and eighteenth position respectively at one point during the race, ut the world champion recovered to claim P5 with his team mate just three slots further back.

Kravitz concludes he is in awe of the work completed over the winter by the Red Bull design team. “It is such a good car. I am waiting to sit down with Adrian Newey, Ben Waterhouse, Pierre Wache to say ‘how did you do that?’”

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Lawson reveals simulator secrets

The RB20 appears to be more stable than its predecessor something dress in particular struggled with for most of the year. Yet his two outings today in 2024 have seen him his finish P2 behind Max and in Jeddah this was despite a five second penally he picked up during the race.

Reserve driver Liam Lawson spilled the beans on some of the secrets behind the RB20 which he was aware of during last years racing season.

“I was pretty aware that it’d be competitive,” he told the Sky F1 podcast. “There is always talk and hype over the offseason about teams coming closer.

“Everyone is developing but, at the end of the day, when everyone catches up, Red Bull are developing and moving away at the same time.”

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RB20 already looks to 2026

Lewis Hamilton complained last year that Red Bull were so far ahead they could begin work on their 2024 F1 car way earlier than the rest of the field. Lawson reveals this was in fact the case stating, “Last year, when we did some of the development for the car, I did time in the simulator. I knew the performance gains that were coming.

“I knew the car was already winning at that point. If you’re finding time in the sim for next year’s car you know it will be even quicker,” said the New Zealand born driver.

With just one year left before the chassis and engine regulations change significantly, Red Bull will almost certainly retain the RB20 concept and develop it throughout the year and into next. The regulations for the new 2026 chassis are to be confirmed by June this season, though by now the likes of Newey will understand from the FIA working group more than the bare bones of what is to come.

It could even be the RB20 reflects some of these changes, such was the advantage Red Bull had last year which gave them the time to look even further ahead.

It is said the 2026 aero will have fr the first time in decades moveable aero besides the DRS. This is clearly absent from the RB20, but the underfloor design will be retained into F1’s next new era.

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