The behind the scenes story on 'invisible' vents
“There are cars that make others age”he said Ivan Capelli regarding the Red Bull RB20 which amazed everyone. The RB19 won 20 races out of 21 in 2023, but the technicians at the Milton Keynes team had no doubts that it was necessary to raise the bar with the new single-seater.
“We had reached the point that it was no longer possible to develop the RB19 and we knew what its weak points were – explained the technical director Pierre Waché interviewed by the French sports newspaper The Team – furthermore, we were aware that others would copy our concept and who knows, maybe they would even understand it better than us. Furthermore, in 2025, we will focus on the 2026 car and therefore 2024 was a 'now or never' in terms of risks to take.”
The great novelty of the Red Bull RB20 is a 'branching' of the air intakes positioned laterally to 'close' the traditional ones at the entrance to the bellies. “If our guys come to me with an idea and tell me we can gain 10 load points I'd be stupid not to listen to them – added Waché – then it is normal to encounter numerous problems, but if you don't have to solve problems it means that it is not a winning idea. The final relief came at Silverstone on filming day because the cooling was working, until then there had been sleepless nights.”
At Red Bull they do not rule out the possibility that there could be 'teething' problems for an RB20 that is so different from the RB19: “There are a lot of things that aren't right yet, problems that aren't visible, but we can make the car work in conditions that aren't the easiest and that's very satisfying. I'm waiting to see what the performance will be, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in the RB20“.
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