Red Bull RB20

[Silent Storm]

Yeah that's a good 20mm shorter than before rather than 5mm.



And here's older spec, use mechanics finger as reference and you'll see that the bybit red line is not 5mm thin.

[Silent Storm]

A nice side view of older spec sidepod inlet.

[AR3-GP]

Floor looks to be the same as before ? contrary to report from formu1a uno

It's possible that the changes are more hidden underneath (tunnels)

[tmoneyr007]

Is that also a revised front brake drum for additional front wake control?

Yeah that's a good 20mm shorter than before rather than 5mm.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKTtilIXMAA ... name=large

And here's older spec, use mechanics finger as reference and you'll see that the bybit red line is not 5mm thin.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GH-sCPdXMAE ... name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHNaEnCXUAA ... me=900x900

[Vanja #66]

It is compensated by the reduction of the sidepod inlet cooling.

The drag associated with the cooling system is a function of the total required cooling power. Considering that they are still using a Honda engine, this hasn’t changed.

Enough of the games and telling us it’s pointless, draggy, and underwhelming. This is the world champion team. The track record speaks for itself.

You can't really compensate adding 2 extra leading edges with associated stagnation areas. There could be a stretched argument over drag trade-off even with the increase in frontal area and the pressurisation within the inlet, but leading edge stagnation drag is clear as day and undoubtedly leads to overall increase. I'm not saying it's a big increase, I'm not even saying it's significant, I'm just saying it's there.

Cooling system drag is definitely not a straight-forward function of total required cooling power alone. It depends on radiator core(s), bodywork outlet pressure, inlet pressures and of course the internal inlet and outlet ducting aero design. It's constantly improved bit by bit even during the season. But that does not mean you can add frontal area and extra leading edges and get away with it penalty-free.

It's ironic for you to accuse others of playing games But in any case, my opinion is my opinion and I am always happy to debate on it. Never said it's pointless, in fact I said it's all logical. I just don't like it as I think they could have done a better job. No need for anyone to have their feelings hurt

It's still drag reduction. They added a new hole with a certain area and they balance off that by removing that area from the inlet.
It's not one to one, as the upper opening is in a different location with different effect on drag. It wont have as much of a ram effect and drag as the frontal opening. It also doesnt impact flow around the sidepod as the frontal opening would.
So yeah it's drag but as you may hint there is something esle at play. That other factor may be efficiency.

Answered above mostly. I'm curious as to why you believe new inlet wouldn't have as much ram/stagnation drag?

[ANDY238]

[AR3-GP]

That's a good catch.

[Venturiation]

[Venturiation]

[PlatinumZealot]

The radiator inlets are only just sniffing the air as it passes by... not huge dynamic pressure build-up like other teams. Almost pure static pressure pushes the air in gently... Other teams will look at copying right away.

[ringo]

Answered above mostly. I'm curious as to why you believe new inlet wouldn't have as much ram/stagnation drag?

There are many reasons, It is not seeing the same air speed and flow quality there as the frontal opening due to its position on the upper surface, it's shape, and the fact it doesn't have an upper lip ramming air into it; to put it simply.

It's basically located in a very dirty flow area, adjacent to high stagnation about the cockpit and halo mounts. This area is already draggy, and placing that inlet there will in fact bleed off some of the wake coming out of the cockpit and about the driver's head.
We also see that turning vane under the mirror that is conditioning the air for downstream. What's downstream is that opening.
This is why it would make sense to take away cooling opening area from the more critical area around the undercut, and put it somewhere else that has less sensitive flow, and a region with wake coming off a bluff body. Not much to lose there compared to the gains made from narrowing the inlets further.

[ringo]

My suspicion is Redbull will revert to a sidepod inlet like Aston Martin. They will soon accept that the Aston Design provides cleaner flow around the sidepod.
Them putting that hole on top and narrowing the inlet is pretty much evolving the design towards Aston's. That's what I suspect anyway.
The advantage they will have is the vertical opening. They can be even more aggressive with an Aston style inlet that would be smaller than Aston's.

[ANDY238]

New sis

[Vanja #66]

There are many reasons, It is not seeing the same air speed and flow quality there as the frontal opening due to its position on the upper surface, it's shape, and the fact it doesn't have an upper lip ramming air into it; to put it simply.

It's basically located in a very dirty flow area, adjacent to high stagnation about the cockpit and halo mounts. This area is already draggy, and placing that inlet there will in fact bleed off some of the wake coming out of the cockpit and

But that's not where 99% of the cockpit losses go. Scarbs posted a clip of CFD from Alpine recently and it's a perfect visual tool in this case



I've taken a few screenshots and placed them in the right "direction" since the clip Alpine released is played in reverse



You can see circled in white the suspension losses coming towards sidepod inlet. This tells us purple shows minor and unavoidable losses in this CFD plot. On images 2 and 3 we see the boundary layer losses in purple around the bodywork in this whole area. And then on image 4 we see basically no losses where RB placed the new inlet (circled in yellow) and practically all of the cockpit losses go above the shoulders, circled in red.

This is the purpose of the flat shoulder geometry RB, Alpine and McLaren introduced in 2022 and why Mercedes went a step beyond with sausage shoulders last year. When you think about it, even without CFD it's clear cockpit losses will go out the back, there are side walls for driver's head protection preventing the air spilling out the side.

[basti313]

You can see circled in white the suspension losses coming towards sidepod inlet. This tells us purple shows minor and unavoidable losses in this CFD plot. On images 2 and 3 we see the boundary layer losses in purple around the bodywork in this whole area. And then on image 4 we see basically no losses where RB placed the new inlet (circled in yellow) and practically all of the cockpit losses go above the shoulders, circled in red.

This is the purpose of the flat shoulder geometry RB, Alpine and McLaren introduced in 2022 and why Mercedes went a step beyond with sausage shoulders last year. When you think about it, even without CFD it's clear cockpit losses will go out the back, there are side walls for driver's head protection preventing the air spilling out the side.

Thank you.

But I do not 100% follow your description...there are now the two wings under the mirror mount which (obviously?) work for these two inlets.

I fear to really understand what these two inlets are doing, one needs to understand what the wings are doing, we can not interpret the inlet without the wing.