James Allison admitted he was keen to explore the layout of Red Bull Racing’s new RB20 car and joked that he would love it if the team invited him to check it out.
Last year’s RB19 car became the most successful in the history of the championship; the team’s drivers achieved victories at all stages of the season, with the exception of Singapore, and it was to be expected that Milton Keynes would continue to improve on such a successful design. but Adrian Newey and his engineers took a different path.
In 2024, the Red Bull car attracted general attention and is apparently distinguished by a number of original solutions, and the most obvious changes affected the layout of the cooling system – this is evidenced by the unusual shape of the radiator air ducts in the pontoons on the side.
“I would very much like to accept an invitation to visit the Red Bull garage to investigate what is under the engine housing of the car,” Mercedes technical director told Sky Sports. “They have definitely taken a different approach, and what we can see indicates a serious overhaul of the cooling system approach. There must be a reason why they did this, and I would really like to know what that reason is. We haven’t been able to figure it out yet.”
Mercedes has also made many changes to the design of this year’s car, including the front wing of the W15 with a rather unusual configuration, which also raises questions among experts. Ellison explained the reasons for choosing this solution: “We just didn’t want the upper plane of the wing to have such a big chord. If you look closely at the front wings of all the cars, the chord changes across the entire width of the wing depending on what a particular team thinks is the most effective solution.
I think the problem is the small size of this aircraft on the W15, but we had to comply with regulations, so we have the aircraft there, but we don’t want it to be too big. That’s why we made it smaller.”
In this case, Ellison is operating in terms understandable only to aerodynamicists, and in this context a chord is a straight segment connecting the two points of the airfoil that are farthest apart.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
