Red Bull RB20

[RedNEO]

It’s evolved from underbite-overbite gate to horizontal-vertical gate

I think the sidepods we have seen on track/launch won’t change much.. it would be pretty expensive to build sidepods for one week

[Paa]

Is this 'brightened pic' with a vertical cooling intake, a real image or an edit-joke by someone ?

What hasn't been ruled out is an S-duct inlet (like Ferrari), in addition to their tradition horizontal opening under the roof of the sidepod.

Or it might as well be the opposite. The vertical opening for cooling and then a small horizontal slot for s-duct.

[Venturiation]

Can someone explain how the 2 "redbull" cars last year McLaren and Redbull both switched to mid-wing this year and are hiding the real car until Bahrain
Did they reach the ceiling and found that the next evolution is the mid-wing and some kind of zeropods iteration ?

[vorticism]

Is this 'brightened pic' with a vertical cooling intake, a real image or an edit-joke by someone ?

What hasn't been ruled out is an S-duct inlet (like Ferrari), in addition to their tradition horizontal opening under the roof of the sidepod.

Or it might as well be the opposite. The vertical opening for cooling and then a small horizontal slot for s-duct.

Pretty sure the S-duct has to be vertical. It takes advantage of an unregulated volume inboard of the sidepod volume. Any inlet into the sidepod volume has to feed a radiator core.

Well, thats the charm of decoys. They are fantasy and hence do not take up any windtunnel time. The car probably only has one sidepod...

+1 Interesting take. With such lorge sidepods you might get away with rad maxxing on one side only. Inlet only on the left side for CCW tracks, right side for CW tracks. Where was shakedown held?

[.poz]

maybe is a P shaped inlet and since the vertical opening is part of the cooling inlet it can be placed further back than the Ferrari duct

[molina]

That picture simply looks de-featured, whatever that line of pixels is, does not represent the reality.

[dialtone]

Why are you people saying that the vertical inlet is a mercedes thing? Vertical or horizontal is the smallest part of the work mercedes did which involved moving radiators and shaping the chassis to accomodate having small sidepods.

RB20 looks to have the same amount of sidepods. Fundamentally the car philosophy looks unchanged. Vertical or horizontal inlet is just a detail imho, the inlet itself is just a pipe.

[AR3-GP]

Can someone explain how the 2 "redbull" cars last year McLaren and Redbull both switched to mid-wing this year and are hiding the real car until Bahrain
Did they reach the ceiling and found that the next evolution is the mid-wing and some kind of zeropods iteration ?

It's certainly curious, and in this case I don't believe in coincidences...

[AmateurDriver]

Is this 'brightened pic' with a vertical cooling intake, a real image or an edit-joke by someone ?

No there seems to be a vertical dark slit when you brighten the picture

Pardon my ignorance, but it doesn't make sense to me, how this is going to route the boundary layer to go and hit the radiators inside the sidepod, without suffering serious losses. If it is going to be 'almost a slit' it has to be a horizontal letterbox under the overbite. Shifting the entry by 90 (especially with a massive thin-profile horizontal plane-wing forming the overbite) to deliver sufficient cooling AND a clean undercut flow, isn't too clever.


...

...
...OR ...
is it ?
Even if it's an S-duct entry to energize flow along a different axis, it looks too MASSIVE for that purpose, the disturbance to the undercut would be too costly a tradeoff, I feel.

Quite similar to that of SF23 indeed

[Andi76]

I don't know - it doesn't make much sense to me. With this solution, there would be no pressurization in this area, which would have a negative effect on front wheel wake management and the airflow in the former undercut area. I think Red Bull is playing a little game here, just like 12 or 13 years ago.
The mere fact that an image is leaked.... Yes. Sure. But not without intention.

[Paa]

Can someone explain how the 2 "redbull" cars last year McLaren and Redbull both switched to mid-wing this year and are hiding the real car until Bahrain
Did they reach the ceiling and found that the next evolution is the mid-wing and some kind of zeropods iteration ?

It's certainly curious, and in this case I don't believe in coincidences...

At this didn't start just now.
Remember that 2 years ago, these two teams were the only strange ones with the pull(front)-push(rear) suspension setup.

[dialtone]

I don't know - it doesn't make much sense to me. With this solution, there would be no pressurization in this area, which would have a negative effect on front wheel wake management and the airflow in the former undercut area. I think Red Bull is playing a little game here, just like 12 or 13 years ago.
The mere fact that an image is leaked.... Yes. Sure. But not without intention.

Also from a cooling point of view, that area was in relatively clean air above the front suspension, while moving it vertically puts it square in the suspension turbulence. Merc had plenty of cooling problems in hot races with the vertical slots.

If they are doing it though clearly they found something worth it.

[Venturiation]

Why are you people saying that the vertical inlet is a mercedes thing? Vertical or horizontal is the smallest part of the work mercedes did which involved moving radiators and shaping the chassis to accomodate having small sidepods.

RB20 looks to have the same amount of sidepods. Fundamentally the car philosophy looks unchanged. Vertical or horizontal inlet is just a detail imho, the inlet itself is just a pipe.

Sidepods are fake and just there to hide the real body before testing
Like W13 in Barcelona vs Bahrain

[dialtone]

Why are you people saying that the vertical inlet is a mercedes thing? Vertical or horizontal is the smallest part of the work mercedes did which involved moving radiators and shaping the chassis to accomodate having small sidepods.

RB20 looks to have the same amount of sidepods. Fundamentally the car philosophy looks unchanged. Vertical or horizontal inlet is just a detail imho, the inlet itself is just a pipe.

Sidepods are fake and just there to hide the real body before testing
Like W13 in Barcelona vs Bahrain

You think they literally moved all the radiators into the sides and gave up on managing the tire wake by pushing it out sideways using their sidepod shape?

That sidepods are going to change is not the same as they will disappear.

[AR3-GP]

If they are doing it though clearly they found something worth it.

They "think" they did...as others before them...they'll be hoping for a different outcome however...