Marco: We will find out in tests whether the RB20 pontoons will work

At the presentation of the Red Bull RB20, everyone paid attention to the air intakes on the side pontoons of the new car. The very narrow vertical air intake is located very close to the side of the chassis, which makes the design quite compact and signals a change in the design concept of the car, which the champion team has been following in recent years.

Some people have noticed the similarity between Red Bull Racing’s new sidepods and those of Mercedes. Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko confirmed that the engineers decided to implement the concept first presented by colleagues from Mercedes.

Helmut Marko: “Mercedes was convinced of the correctness of their concept, but in practice it did not work. In the coming tests we will see if we can successfully implement a similar solution, or let’s call it a similar solution.

Adrian Newey always preferred cars without radiators, but motorists, of course, did not allow this, which is logical.

Our concept is not as extreme as Mercedes, but from an idea point of view the direction is similar. This is more than evolution – it’s a small revolution. The concept underpins the 2024 car. The data collected in the simulator and in the wind tunnel showed that everything works very well.”