Red Bull’s lead engineer Paul Monaghan has explained the logic behind the team’s decision to launch a rather different RB20 despite the RB19’s dominance last year.
Red Bull’s RB20 marked a change of direction from the RB19, with the Milton Keynes-based team opting to oppose a conservative evolution and opt for a different design direction for the new car.
While the RB20 proved dominant in the first two races of 2024, achieving a one-two in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the new car proved once again that the constructors’ champions have discovered the good with their newest model.
But such a step is not guaranteed, given the change of direction made by Red Bull with its RB20 concept, which opted not to continue the evolution of the 2023 car, which in turn is an evolution of the ’22.
Speaking to the media, adding PlanetF1. com, Paul Monaghan spoke about the step Red Bull is taking with the RB20 and assessed the magnitude of the step taken for ’23.
“They’re really quite similar [in magnitude], but think of it as a lap time value, not just a number,” Monaghan said.
“We can probably put more downforce on this car if needed, it’s just a matter of how well it behaves on the track.
“So your purpose is to give you a platform where you can clock the lap time, not necessarily the biggest number.
“In terms of the magnitude of the measure, it doesn’t matter, does it?This is just our position in relation to our opponents and the lap time is a bargaining chip. “
But why did Red Bull turn its back on the RB19 concept to go in a new direction?
“We must not be complacent,” he said.
“We’re trying to make a decent step with this car, which is comparable to 2022 in 2023.
“The scale of evolution, if we judge it visually, is not necessarily indicative of what we have achieved in terms of lap times.
“You have to make sure. It’s not smart to be sensible and behave on one side of the track and not the other. “
“So, in my opinion, we had a pretty smart car last year. And moving away from that to take more risks turns out to be a foolish choice. An evolution of what we had last year, if we can put enough into it to remain directed at our opposition, is the right thing to do.
But Monaghan downplayed the revolutionary aspect of the RB20, saying the car doesn’t differ as much as previously thought.
“Conceptually, no. Visually, again, don’t judge it by the magnitude of the replacement that you can see,” he said.
“It’s the magnitude of the change that we never see, which is really the judgment on how our lap time evolves. The car you see now is not going to be the one we’ll have in six months’ time or in the last third of the season. “
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As F1 enters the third year of the existing technical regulations and the ground-effect regulations come of age, Monaghan explained that the change of direction has allowed Red Bull to pursue a design direction that potentially has a higher limit of functionality than they had followed. Evolution of the RB19.
“If we make bigger changes to the car, we’ll have more features,” he said. “That’s part of the reason we say, ‘Let’s go ahead and replace things more completely. ‘”
“This is the last big run of the bucket because, in 2025, we have to look ahead to 2026.
“In terms of aerodynamic research, you can see early on if we’re hitting safe limits.
“At this point, you have to say, ‘Okay, can we see things and what do we want to change?'”
“We still want to replace something for next year, which would lose the unlocked ergometry that looks promising, but we can’t move on to this year’s car?You’ll probably start to see that now. “
“It’s just a matter of whether to say that a major upgrade for next year is feasible, realistic, financially feasible and whether we have the resources to do it. We’ll find out.
After embarking on a new design path, Monaghan said he suspects there’s a good chance of finding more features as the year progresses.
“At the moment, the gains are still there,” he said. In terms of scale, at the moment we can place [the gains] compared to last year. I suspect towards the end of the year, it might well be minimized a little bit, but we have brilliantly artistic people.
“If they locate it, then we’ll seize it. It’s as undeniable as that. “
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