Red Bull is going against the grain. Adrian Newey dictates the line of development and wants to force his opponents to chase him, but always staying one step ahead of the others. The RB20 seems like a jewel designed for aerodynamics and, instead, what emerges very clearly from the first images of the naked car from Milton Keynes is that the staff directed by Pierre Waché has focused heavily on finding the best center of gravity to have a car with excellent balance.
Our Giorgio Piola, spending hours in the pitlane, managed to capture some photographs that allowed us to discover the concept that was evolved on the single-seater of the world champion team. At Red Bull they have tried to optimize the placement of the cooling system, studying an arrangement of the radiators that is unprecedented and, certainly, imaginative.
Red Bull RB20: the side is very hollow with a very pronounced undercut
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The need to have a very deep undercut, i.e. the passage of air under the belly which descends from the undercut and feeds the pavement of the bottom, forced Newey to raise the radiators: the aerodynamic advantage must overcome the negative effect of an increase in the masses.
In Red Bull they thought it best to exploit the “double bottom”, a concept that they all developed, knowing they would find performance, but unlike others in Milton Keynes they thought about how to optimize its adverse aspects. And looking at the images, the incredible sophistication of the RB20 emerges: there are four levels into which the cooling system of the Honda power unit has been divided.
Red Bull RB20: the vertical air intake that feeds the intercooler and the horizontal one for the water radiator
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Despite what we were saying after seeing the first photos, the vertical intake under the radiator mouth is not a “By pass duct” similar to the one that Ferrari confirmed on the SF-24, but it is an intake that brings the air to the turbo intercooler which was placed in a horizontal position on the floor of the belly.
Red Bull RB20: under the water radiator you can see the intercooler which is mounted horizontally
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The traditional water radiator, however, is located higher up and is very inclined forward: this element is fed by the horizontal mouth which remains hidden under the wing and which acts as a conduit to the actual entrance to the bellies. With this configuration Red Bull managed to have a very pronounced excavation under the side, without penalizing aerodynamic efficiency despite having opened two cooling intakes.
On the RB19, which dominated the 2023 season by winning 22 of the 23 GPs contested, there was also the “central” radiator placed on the Honda engine. It was very high up, mounted at an angle: it has now been lowered to a horizontal position above the engine and has been reduced in size to fit in the bonnet. In this case the fresh air comes from the two ears of the airbox, while the flow that enters the triangular roll bar is intended for the intake of the 6-cylinder Honda.
Red Bull RB20: the red arrows indicate the service radiator sockets
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Newey then saw fit to place two other service radiators in a new position, immediately behind the Halo connection, certainly lower than where they were last year. It is understandable why the RB20's bazooka is very rounded and placed so high: the cooling intake was created between the airbox and the bazooka, while it vents heat from the gills opened laterally.
Red Bull RB20: the gills opened in the bazooka to extract heat from the service radiators
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The team from Milton Keynes, therefore, divided the cooling into four separate elements, to optimize the center of gravity: it was a design choice that forced Red Bull to completely redesign the car. Looking at the shots, one can say that the transition to a Mercedes-style “zero pods” configuration, as some observers had hypothesized in recent days, is practically impossible.
Indeed, the study of the packaging must have been obsessive and, almost certainly, this solution also led to an increase in weight with more tubes and ducts to connect the entire very complicated cooling system.
Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Uncredited
It is reasonable to think, therefore, that the RB20 was not created at the weight limit, but that its development objective was to break through the 798 kg to go below and introduce ballast where it is most useful to best balance the car.
Red Bull made very courageous choices which from the first laps in the tests in Bahrain seemed to pay off a lot: these are solutions that cannot be copied. In Milton Keynes they took the concepts to extremes in the knowledge that more performance can be extracted from this more complicated configuration, but in the world championship team I have to hope not to have mechanical problems because working in the bellies or on the accessories of the Honda power unit will not be easy at all…
#Revolutionary #Red #Bull #stages #cooling
