RB20 side pontoons attract everyone’s attention

Red Bull Racing’s new car was not only in the spotlight in Bahrain because Max Verstappen finished the first test day on the first line of the protocol, but was also more than a second ahead of the rest.

Last year’s RB19 was the most successful car in Formula 1 history, but the next model, created by the Milton Keynes team led by Adrian Newey, began to surprise even before it first appeared on the track. Some external differences from its predecessor immediately seemed quite radical to experts, and even after the first day of testing, not all questions were answered and not all the secrets of the RB20 were revealed.

At the very top of the side pontoons is a narrow slot, which is only part of the area that acts as air intakes for the radiator, as there is another vertical slot below it. In addition, there are additional openings located on the sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit.

The side pontoons are very narrow, they have a huge bevel at the bottom – something like this area looked at the presentation of the RB20. However, observers are divided over the purpose of the holes in the pontoons.

This is what Gary Anderson, former race car designer and now technical expert for The Race, writes:

“Red Bull is one of those Formula 1 teams that are best at keeping their secrets and doing everything they can to hide as much as possible from prying eyes… We often wonder why body parts have such a complex shape with many different types of convexities. and thickenings – as a rule, this is due to the fact that components of cooling systems and various electronic units are hidden under them…

A narrow horizontal slot, similar to a hole in a mailbox, shifted as high as possible – this is the air intake of the radiator. The vertical slot, which has caused confusion among many, is also the opening of some kind of air duct, but it is unclear what it is intended for cooling. Perhaps this vertical air duct also serves to control the “boundary” layer of airflow that forms on the surface of the sides of the machine… “

That. If Mark Hughes, an expert on the championship’s official website, suggests that all these slots are mainly related to the cooling system, then Anderson believes it is not just that. Be that as it may, once the team installed softer C3 tires on Max Verstappen’s car and started to improve the condition of the track surface, it became clear that the RB20 behaves exceptionally stable on the track, dealing better with uneven surfaces than other teams’ cars and overall it has excellent balance.

Combined with the stable performance of the chassis, this suggests that the chassis must work very well with the tires and that the drivers must take good care of them, although the team did not complete long series of laps on the first day of testing.