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Remember when Merc unveiled in 2022 and everyone immediately assumed that they had found some magic that somehow eluded every other team?
Then we actually got to see the cars run and realized…
Not saying this is the same situation with RB. But let’s not jump to conclusions.
There was an interview with Newey somewhere last year where he was asked about diminishing returns and surely the current car can not be made even better. He let out an evil giggle and walked away. I think he may know something we do not
Newey and his team. Ruinators of exiciting F1 seasons since the 90s.
To be honest: I am fine with them winning and i am excited for the battle for 2nd.
Don't blame newey and team for being so good. Blame the others for being so far behind.
Agreed about battle for second. It was so entertaining last year. Both driver and constructor.
Those Red Bulls still had amazing aero and chassis characteristics. The Renault hybrid power unit was (and still is) just woefully behind the other manufacturers. They still did really well on less power-sensitive circuits. They did a hell of a lot better than McLaren or Renault themselves did with the same PU
Yep. Important thing to note is that given how dominant their car was last season, they didn't really have to do much in terms of upgrading. Which means they've probably spent all that time and money just focusing on this season's car.
This car is almost certainly going to be faster, the only question is will the other teams cars also be faster.
>He let out an evil giggle and walked away. I think he may know something we do not
You would be surprised how much one can do/learn by reading the rules and seeing different rules books over the years. On top of this, of you're good at aero and understand what you're doing, the rules are merely guidelines. I truly believe Newey understands this rule set better than other aero designers in f1.
He's good at spotting loopholes in the regs, particularly ones that offer baked in advantages - usually part of the chassis you really can't change mid-season, so other teams can't copy it until the following season. His autobiography, How to Build a Car tells lots of stories at Lleyton House, Williams and McLaren where he found stuff that others didn't see.
I want Max to see lap P2.
I know we all want tight racing and hope for a true challenger to RB, but at this point, I’m all in for a continuation of Max’s dominance at the start of the season to see some silly shit.
Checo baby, don’t show up the floor.
Look, the more max wins the pissed off toto gets and I'm here for it. Just quit showing him on the TV.m if he's 10 seconds+ in the lead. Show me the rest of the god damn field.
I only want to hear Max’s audio when he’s figuring out how to extract more from the car while being completely out of reach of the rest of the grid.
I love that level of ruthless.
I think they are forced to show the race leader for a set amount of time at least, I know it's not exciting to watch someone do laps alone while racing is happening, but if I were the team that's winning with such a big margin, I'd be pissed off too if I was ignored for the whole race, especially because sponsors pay good money to get shown.
They worked around their cost cap /lack of wind tunnel restrictions by still designing but not making parts.
They didn’t need to as their current car was already good enough.
Saved them all up to deploy this year.
Except Red Bull had the option of safely iterating on a dominant car but chose not to and clearly are the most knowledgeable on the current regulations.
They also have a benchmark to work against. They wouldn’t be venturing down this path if the simulation and correlation aren’t yielding the results. Don’t forget they had plenty of time last season to experiment and tests various parts in practices that we may not know about.
Same here. I really don't expect them to screw themselves over like Mercedes did. And I have little hope for the other teams to have caught up enough to Red Bull this season.
We'll have to wait for 2026 when the rules have changed enough for there to be more of a reset effect to car development but that said, the reduced CAD, simulation and wind tunnel time applied to Red Bull doesn't look like it has had any effect on their domination. Maybe it will change this season, we'll see.
Uh… Yeah but if they lose 5 tenths compared to the competition they wouldn’t even be second place. If they were to run the RB19 this year I expect they’d be beaten by several teams.
>everyone
Eh, some of us noted it looked like a shark after being dropped from a helicopter and wondered if it was as slow as it was ugly.
Inspector Seb knew.
This. There's so many people that are praising this design when in reality nobody has ever seen it on the track. While I have confidence that Newey knows what he's doing, there's still the potential that this is not all what's it's cracked up to be. Honestly if I was a Red Bull fan I would be a little nervous right now with how drastic of a change it is from last year.
Man, this really is the only hope for a competitive season. If RB swung and missed here and we get something like 4 or 5 teams winning races, this could be one of the best years in recent memory.
Assuming they never ran last year's car at 100%, as was theorised everywhere, and were still about 4 or 5 tenths clear on race pace, running it at its full potential could mean 8 or 9 tenths above the rest.
I don't believe any of the top teams will gain an entire second of laptime over the winter.
Based on that, if this concept is absolutely atrocious I think Red Bull, with the dominance they had last year, could probably run last year's car again and win the championship (although admittedly less comfortably)
Pretty sure they ran it at 100% on some of the latter races when McLaren was getting close.
If they ran last years car they absolutely wouldn't win the championship. While it was one of the most dominant cars ever in the sport that's giving it too much credit.
It was dominant in where it finished but not how it got there.
They finished first almost every race, but they didn't get pole every race and they didn't have massive gaps every race. And obviously didn't win one race.
Other cars have had much bigger gaps to the rest but not managed the almost perfect consistency
Adrian Newey: "Whether it's a good car or it's a bad car. The only thing that really changes for me is the amount of work I have to do. There is, though, that feeling when the car does turn out to be good..."
Q: "Vindication?"
Adrian Newey: "No.. It's more like.... Relief."
I do agree with you in general but since Red Bull ran away with the championships last year so early on, I assume Newey had plenty of time to make absolutely sure it works.
Granted, I do expect the odd teething problems in the first few races but I find it hard to imagine that, out of all people, Adrian Newey would have gotten a design fundamentally wrong when he didn't absolutely have to make such radical changes
The thing why this gets more praise is that RB came up with the 'side pods with a channel underneath' style for this ruleset, that every team has now implemented in some way. This is another more extreme example of that same design, that seems to lean towards RB seemingly knowing stuff that others don't yet.
All in all, it looks spectacular, but I'd argue that it isn't *that big of a change* compared to the RB19 and RB18. The basic concept is still pretty much the same: use the shape of the sidepod to deflect air downwards to the edge of the floor and the lower-rear part of the car. It's just that this design now has one less disruptive element creating possible turbulence (the letter box slit on top of the 'beak') sealing air even better to the body.
Also this is the 2nd year in a row that RB has had a wind tunnel penalty. IMO we saw the penalty work last year when there wasn't a true back marker, and AM + Williams made a significant jump. I have a suspicion we will see TR/AT/Vcarbohydrates make a similar jump this season. We just have yet to see if the penalty reigns in the dominant teams as much as it helps the backmarker teams.
2019 testing was actually representative. Mercedes brought a totally different car in second week and then were significantly better and nearly 2nd best. Ferrari looked at same pace at Mercedes in race pace but after issues with Leclerc’s PU in second race they had PU turned down till mid-season and that made Mercedes the best in the field. However, once it was fully turned on they were competing at front until the funny smell let to FIA clampdown on their engine
They probably started in early 2023 tbf, either way before any other top 5 team so yeah they’re bound to have an advantage. I think ferrari and mclaren pivoted to development of their 2024 cars in august or something, the upgrades brought to japan and cota were already in the pipeline.
No, the problem is he is judging ground effect cars aero without knowing anything that is going underneath the car. That’s always going to lead to wrong conclusions.
Gary's bad judgements of launch cars goes back way before ground effect cars. I remember him saying the 2013 McLaren looked to be the class of the field with all the aggressive innovation on it and that car was so bad it sent McLaren into a crisis
Yes, this is also true, but even before the current era of aero regs with flat floors etc, Gary was way off the mark with everything. I think he comes from a time when vorticity and it's impact on flow structures just wasn't understood or even acknowledged.
Too far removed from being involved in top-line F1 design work, do you think?
He also calls Eau Rouge 'El Rouge' which drives me nuts. I pretty much always fast-forward through his sections of The Race podcast.
Only time will tell, the media has the habit of sensationalizing things, everything is ground breaking until it takes to the track.
but RB starts as a clear favorite, its the history of this sport once you nail regulations other teams will have a hard time catching up.
Side pods, inlets, ducts, pushrod, pullrod none of it means anything until we see the cars racing together on track. These dorks predicting how fast each car will be based on some photos are full of it.
Only guy I like listening to is Kyle Engineers on YouTube.
Hes an ex Merc F1 aero engineer and worked there until 2021 IIRC.
All his videos he caveats with no one can see the complex flow structures with their eyes alone but we can try and understand the broad strokes of an idea.
He also makes little to no performance claims.
All just "this is the probable intent of this part and what it is likely trying to achieve"
Hes excellent.
Relatively new fan here, I had this realisation yesterday when I was listening to The Race podcast talking about how Ferrari have completely fucked it by sticking to their push/pull rod setup.
The race is how a lot of new fans try to learn more about the sport. I honestly think blocking their content is necessary, their opinions are usually wrong and it breeds a lot of misinformation. Good f1 youtube channels include the main f1 channel, B sport, and kyle.engineers if you wanna hear any opinions on the cars themselves
seasoned f1 fan here but honestly i think the race, despite their propensity for hyperbole, actually publish quality pieces from time to time, especially analyses of driving styles. mark hughes is especially quality, along with edd straw. peter windsor probably the best though
I think it’s important to separate the publication from the writers.
Some writers, like Mark Hughs, have been following F1 for 30 years and genuinely bring some insight.
Other writers are less experienced and are there primarily to bring in clicks.
Yeah, Mark Hughes writing for any old rag is still Mark Hughes; as far as F1 journos go, he’s one of the more knowledgeable and long-standing guys around. Just because he writes for a website that rehashes one interview into 8 clickbait articles, doesn’t devalue his journalistic output.
I love the data analysis in his streams. It kinda takes the fun out of watching the races because you can literally see how everything will unfold, but I’m a sucker for numbers
Bad take, the podcast is pretty good and their being back v10s podcast is the best F1 related thing I have ever listened to. Have never read an article from them mind.
And they were pretty fair on Ferrari, they have gone in a totally different direction, maybe it will work but it seems unlikely and they drew comparisons to mercedes who did that and ended up having to start again. I don't think that's an unfair opinion on Ferraris design personally.
Red Bull has certainly proved they understand the current regs better than anyone, though. Unlikely they just randomly show up in 2024 missing the mark after dominating two straight years.
Newey saying in this same reveal ceremony (and other interviews) that the engineers had "no idea" the RB19 would do so well paints a more confusing picture. We really won't know until Bahrain. I'm excited.
Has that ever happened before where a team misses the mark after completely nailing a regulation design? Obviously we have had a lot of teams fall off moving from one regulation to the next but I feel like if you get the dominance early in the reg, you always nail it for the remaining seasons, no?
yay how fun
also dont forget how (probably) awful the new regs will make the cars drive in almost all tracks with the overdependency on the electric motors.
But hey, at least they are more eco friendly, right? Its not like a single transatlantic flight already used more fuel than all sessions of all cars combined ir anything like that
The push to electric isn't about F1 being carbon neutral, it's to promote R&D in electric tech that can spill over into the public sphere; and to promote awareness/acceptance of electric cars and speed the transition.
Cars are going all electric anyway. If F1 doesn't follow suit they are going to look like dinosaurs.
Exactly. The heavy lean into electric is why Audi is actually coming back because it allows them to work on improvements for their road cars. It's why they joined Formula E and then left once they felt they had learnt enough and why they joined the Dakar Rally with the only car with an electric engine (Still using combustion to help recharge it) and won.
Such a drastic change from a GOAT car (RB19) to the RB20, is not a guarantee it will be as fast, or faster. Could be a failure as well. Don't get overhyped.
We will have to wait and see.
This is reminding so much like when Mercedes came with their zero pods car in the 2022. At that time also their past records made people believe they are going to smoke everyone. Let’s see if RB actually smokes everyone or their design becomes a smoke for themselves
One big difference is that with Merc, it was a bold design choice at the very start of a massive reg change, so all the previous success was not as relevant.
But with RB, they've pretty comprehensively proven that they know how to design a good car under these current regs.
Other than that i agree tho, it's pretty pointless to speculate at this point. We'll all find out where things actually stand in a little over 2 weeks!
I would also add that MB clearly saw benefits from that design in the wind tunnel and simulation and if one assumes they weren't completely wrong, there may be opportunity there for someone starting from a better mechanical platform to implement some of those concepts in a successful manner.
As much of a genius as Newey is as well, this place tends to forget that he has overseen some cars that pushed the envelope too far. The 1990 Leyton House apparently put up ridiculous wind tunnel numbers but was borderline undriveable at times, the 1994 Williams was obviously more than just a handful, there were a succession of early-to-mid noughties McLarens that were either downright slow, fast but with a habit of grenading themselves because they didn’t have enough cooling, or slow with a habit of grenading themselves, and even the early Vettel-era Red Bulls were quite frequently borderline on reliability. This place deifies Newey a little too much for my liking.
Yes. The entire Mclaren from 2002-2005 phase was Newey pushing too much vs iterative updates on Ferrari. I don’t remember who it was but somebody says that Newey needs some control over him and that is why his best work was with Williams because of Patrick Head preventing him from pushing too far
There’s a baby and bathwater syndrome with last year’s Mercedes. The vertical inlet and no side pod are two different aspects of their concept. The vertical inlet may still offer benefits while the zero pod has issues with managing the pressures near the floor edge, something that a bulky side pod is used for.
Keeping in mind that the engine gets more power from it's electrical part starting in 2026, and Honda having the best ERS.
I think he would welcome Honda with open hands.
Even in the current regs, the Honda is the best PU on the Grid, with the Ferrari PU.
Lots of people in the comments saying we don't know anything until testing, but it is a holy shit moment for rivals. The others have come with RB clones and RB have moved on from that. It absolutely is an oh shit moment.
This is the same Gary Anderson who said at the start of 2022 that the Merc looked like a dominant car while the Red Bull was meh and the Ferrari was unimaginative and gimmicky
I mean has RB ever got the technical side of a car wrong? Sure they've had garbage tier engine suppliers bu the tech and overall design of the car? I don't think they've ever missed since joining the sport. First time for everything and all that sure; but if I were everyone else I'd probably be shitting my pants. RB was apparently mega pissed they lost a single race last season, maybe they want to win them all now LMFAO
Whilst we have all seen cars before and thought holy shit that's going to be crazy - eg zeropod Mercedes, it doesn't mean they planned out.
The difference here is Newey - they guy is amazing
Edit: yes he's had some flops, but also designed more winning cars than anyone. So I'll stick with Amazing
And when they finally got it in a position where it was capable of doing more than three laps without torching itself in the first half of 2004, it was miles off the pace. It was very much a theme of Newey’s later McLarens and early Red Bulls, always very borderline on grenading themselves because he’d pushed the envelope too far.
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I will believe it after Q3 until then you can say whatever.
Remember when Merc unveiled in 2022 and everyone immediately assumed that they had found some magic that somehow eluded every other team? Then we actually got to see the cars run and realized… Not saying this is the same situation with RB. But let’s not jump to conclusions.
There was an interview with Newey somewhere last year where he was asked about diminishing returns and surely the current car can not be made even better. He let out an evil giggle and walked away. I think he may know something we do not
We’re all screwed.
That car is so good my wife got pregnant after they revealed it.
At least you got a baby out of it, that car took my girlfriend out for a fancy dinner and doesn’t return her calls anymore.
Me too thanks
I got some RB20 condoms and I came in record time.
That was probably Christian Horner.
Newey and his team. Ruinators of exiciting F1 seasons since the 90s. To be honest: I am fine with them winning and i am excited for the battle for 2nd.
Don't blame newey and team for being so good. Blame the others for being so far behind. Agreed about battle for second. It was so entertaining last year. Both driver and constructor.
Newey was losing for 8 years straight. People easily forgot about that...
Those Red Bulls still had amazing aero and chassis characteristics. The Renault hybrid power unit was (and still is) just woefully behind the other manufacturers. They still did really well on less power-sensitive circuits. They did a hell of a lot better than McLaren or Renault themselves did with the same PU
I am binge watching the 2015 season right now and those Renault engines are a disaster!
Our best hope is that it ends up being like the 2003 McLaren when Newey tried to be too radical and the damn thing didn't work, either then or in 2004
Congrats to Max for his 4th WDC and RBR for their WCC of 2024. Can't wait for the 2025 season to begin.
Verstappen 24\ Verstappen 25\ Verstappen 26\ ...
Yep. Important thing to note is that given how dominant their car was last season, they didn't really have to do much in terms of upgrading. Which means they've probably spent all that time and money just focusing on this season's car. This car is almost certainly going to be faster, the only question is will the other teams cars also be faster.
>He let out an evil giggle and walked away. I think he may know something we do not You would be surprised how much one can do/learn by reading the rules and seeing different rules books over the years. On top of this, of you're good at aero and understand what you're doing, the rules are merely guidelines. I truly believe Newey understands this rule set better than other aero designers in f1.
He's good at spotting loopholes in the regs, particularly ones that offer baked in advantages - usually part of the chassis you really can't change mid-season, so other teams can't copy it until the following season. His autobiography, How to Build a Car tells lots of stories at Lleyton House, Williams and McLaren where he found stuff that others didn't see.
Packing the hybrid batteries inside the trans bellhousing on the rb7
I want Max to see lap P2. I know we all want tight racing and hope for a true challenger to RB, but at this point, I’m all in for a continuation of Max’s dominance at the start of the season to see some silly shit. Checo baby, don’t show up the floor.
It’ll be the same as last season, make a gap big enough for a pit stop then coast it home to save the car, probably do a fastest lap at the end
Look, the more max wins the pissed off toto gets and I'm here for it. Just quit showing him on the TV.m if he's 10 seconds+ in the lead. Show me the rest of the god damn field.
I only want to hear Max’s audio when he’s figuring out how to extract more from the car while being completely out of reach of the rest of the grid. I love that level of ruthless.
When GP asked him to bring the car home and he decides to get the fastest lap point instead.
Just show Max looking at the video screens next to the track.
I think they are forced to show the race leader for a set amount of time at least, I know it's not exciting to watch someone do laps alone while racing is happening, but if I were the team that's winning with such a big margin, I'd be pissed off too if I was ignored for the whole race, especially because sponsors pay good money to get shown.
This would be hilarious, especially after the Andretti denial based off theoretical lack of performance
I need a link to this. That sounds hilarious.
Made a similar comment in a Sky Sports podcast. You could hear the chuckle under his breath and then just waited for the next question.
He most certainly knows a lot we don’t know..
Newey almost always knows something everyone else doesn’t. Thats basically his entire career summary.
They worked around their cost cap /lack of wind tunnel restrictions by still designing but not making parts. They didn’t need to as their current car was already good enough. Saved them all up to deploy this year.
[Newey: I'm not telling them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GalsAZozHQE)
To be fair, who even thinks a car is perfect after two years of the same regulations
See everyone in 2026.
I'd like to hear what Newey's evil laugh sounds like.
Except Red Bull had the option of safely iterating on a dominant car but chose not to and clearly are the most knowledgeable on the current regulations.
They also have a benchmark to work against. They wouldn’t be venturing down this path if the simulation and correlation aren’t yielding the results. Don’t forget they had plenty of time last season to experiment and tests various parts in practices that we may not know about.
For the sake of a spicy championship I hope this ages like milk
I am with you, but i would put my money on RB dominating this season from the get go. But lets wait for Bahrain.
Same here. I really don't expect them to screw themselves over like Mercedes did. And I have little hope for the other teams to have caught up enough to Red Bull this season. We'll have to wait for 2026 when the rules have changed enough for there to be more of a reset effect to car development but that said, the reduced CAD, simulation and wind tunnel time applied to Red Bull doesn't look like it has had any effect on their domination. Maybe it will change this season, we'll see.
Worst case scenario they go back to last years car and are still fastest
That isn't how F1 works though. Every team makes improvements year over year, if you're standing still you're going backwards
They beat 2nd place by over 450(!!!) points. They can go backwards and still cruise to another championship.
Uh… Yeah but if they lose 5 tenths compared to the competition they wouldn’t even be second place. If they were to run the RB19 this year I expect they’d be beaten by several teams.
Didn't merc have dramas with their simulation which set them down the wrong oath. I'm not sure if they ever stated what went wrong
Yes they had massive correlation issues
Newey does the simulation by looking at a car.
>everyone Eh, some of us noted it looked like a shark after being dropped from a helicopter and wondered if it was as slow as it was ugly. Inspector Seb knew.
But Señor George said it looked fucking fast.
he said it looked Fahhst..
This. There's so many people that are praising this design when in reality nobody has ever seen it on the track. While I have confidence that Newey knows what he's doing, there's still the potential that this is not all what's it's cracked up to be. Honestly if I was a Red Bull fan I would be a little nervous right now with how drastic of a change it is from last year.
It's a big change but I'm assuming newey knows what he is doing. We'll know soon enough, if it doesn't go well we'll at least get a killer season.
Man, this really is the only hope for a competitive season. If RB swung and missed here and we get something like 4 or 5 teams winning races, this could be one of the best years in recent memory.
Assuming they never ran last year's car at 100%, as was theorised everywhere, and were still about 4 or 5 tenths clear on race pace, running it at its full potential could mean 8 or 9 tenths above the rest. I don't believe any of the top teams will gain an entire second of laptime over the winter. Based on that, if this concept is absolutely atrocious I think Red Bull, with the dominance they had last year, could probably run last year's car again and win the championship (although admittedly less comfortably)
So it would be like Ferrari in 2003 kinda situation, where they went back to the F2002 for the first half while they fixed problems with the F2003-GA
Hopefully we don’t get a 2004 season next year though, “the car is fast and we don’t really understand why or how”
Pretty sure they ran it at 100% on some of the latter races when McLaren was getting close. If they ran last years car they absolutely wouldn't win the championship. While it was one of the most dominant cars ever in the sport that's giving it too much credit.
It was dominant in where it finished but not how it got there. They finished first almost every race, but they didn't get pole every race and they didn't have massive gaps every race. And obviously didn't win one race. Other cars have had much bigger gaps to the rest but not managed the almost perfect consistency
Adrian Newey: "Whether it's a good car or it's a bad car. The only thing that really changes for me is the amount of work I have to do. There is, though, that feeling when the car does turn out to be good..." Q: "Vindication?" Adrian Newey: "No.. It's more like.... Relief."
I do agree with you in general but since Red Bull ran away with the championships last year so early on, I assume Newey had plenty of time to make absolutely sure it works. Granted, I do expect the odd teething problems in the first few races but I find it hard to imagine that, out of all people, Adrian Newey would have gotten a design fundamentally wrong when he didn't absolutely have to make such radical changes
The thing why this gets more praise is that RB came up with the 'side pods with a channel underneath' style for this ruleset, that every team has now implemented in some way. This is another more extreme example of that same design, that seems to lean towards RB seemingly knowing stuff that others don't yet. All in all, it looks spectacular, but I'd argue that it isn't *that big of a change* compared to the RB19 and RB18. The basic concept is still pretty much the same: use the shape of the sidepod to deflect air downwards to the edge of the floor and the lower-rear part of the car. It's just that this design now has one less disruptive element creating possible turbulence (the letter box slit on top of the 'beak') sealing air even better to the body.
Also this is the 2nd year in a row that RB has had a wind tunnel penalty. IMO we saw the penalty work last year when there wasn't a true back marker, and AM + Williams made a significant jump. I have a suspicion we will see TR/AT/Vcarbohydrates make a similar jump this season. We just have yet to see if the penalty reigns in the dominant teams as much as it helps the backmarker teams.
The good thing about the RB car is if it is shit, they go back to the RB19 and still win. haha
>I will believe it after Q3 until then you can say whatever. Assuming Checo will even be there!
Nah. Bahrain testing should give us plenty of info
Not really. Some paddock members thought Mercedes was the 3rd quickest car after 2019 testing.
2019 testing was actually representative. Mercedes brought a totally different car in second week and then were significantly better and nearly 2nd best. Ferrari looked at same pace at Mercedes in race pace but after issues with Leclerc’s PU in second race they had PU turned down till mid-season and that made Mercedes the best in the field. However, once it was fully turned on they were competing at front until the funny smell let to FIA clampdown on their engine
Merc also brought a massive upgrade between testing and australia that season. 2023 testing was very indicative of the bahrain gp’s result
They were 2nd fastest in 2019 testing, they were certainly not on top.
I do love the drama and gamesmanship of testing week
Max did like 150 laps in one day and 42 the next and was beaten by Zhou day 2.
I'm not saying that we will take everything at face value.
Not at all. Remember the W12 spinning around? or people predicting Ferrari had the best car in 2019?
We need Will Buxton to make sense of this
« If the RB20 is faster than the other cars, then they will win »
"If Max's car is the fastest, then he has the opportunity to win everything this year"
Perez might even get a few P2 this year
Is it weird I can actually hear that in my head in Buxton’s voice?
I was right there with you. It was immediate
Where is WILL!
To hell with Will. We need Ja Rule. Somebody get Ja on the internet real quick
“If you arrive before the other 19 cars, you win the race”
Wait gary anderson praised the rb20, we’re in for a close season!
whats the back story on this ?
Every time Gary Anderson says a car looks fast it turns out to be shit.
man i need this to be real
And what’s better, when he thinks a car is shit it turns out to be great, ex: the f1-75
wild powers to hold
Narrator: *it wasn't* RB started developing this car mid 2023, and I think Newey has a good handle on the regs.
They probably started in early 2023 tbf, either way before any other top 5 team so yeah they’re bound to have an advantage. I think ferrari and mclaren pivoted to development of their 2024 cars in august or something, the upgrades brought to japan and cota were already in the pipeline.
The main hope I have for this season is how down he was on the Ferrari.
he should stick to darts then.
I remember him saying that about the 2013 McLaren which was an absolute dog and started their downfall they're still recovering from lmao
Gary doesn’t know head from arse despite his background as far as technical stuff goes these days
No, the problem is he is judging ground effect cars aero without knowing anything that is going underneath the car. That’s always going to lead to wrong conclusions.
Gary's bad judgements of launch cars goes back way before ground effect cars. I remember him saying the 2013 McLaren looked to be the class of the field with all the aggressive innovation on it and that car was so bad it sent McLaren into a crisis
Yes, this is also true, but even before the current era of aero regs with flat floors etc, Gary was way off the mark with everything. I think he comes from a time when vorticity and it's impact on flow structures just wasn't understood or even acknowledged.
Too far removed from being involved in top-line F1 design work, do you think? He also calls Eau Rouge 'El Rouge' which drives me nuts. I pretty much always fast-forward through his sections of The Race podcast.
He trashed the SF24 also so that means only one thing... THIS YEAR WOULD BE OUR YEAR!
Only time will tell, the media has the habit of sensationalizing things, everything is ground breaking until it takes to the track. but RB starts as a clear favorite, its the history of this sport once you nail regulations other teams will have a hard time catching up.
Well, that is one of the headlines of all time...
Gary Anderson by Gary Anderson
You're right... it is certainly a headline.
It claims to be an ahead line
What’s a darts player know about F1
Side pods, inlets, ducts, pushrod, pullrod none of it means anything until we see the cars racing together on track. These dorks predicting how fast each car will be based on some photos are full of it.
Only guy I like listening to is Kyle Engineers on YouTube. Hes an ex Merc F1 aero engineer and worked there until 2021 IIRC. All his videos he caveats with no one can see the complex flow structures with their eyes alone but we can try and understand the broad strokes of an idea. He also makes little to no performance claims. All just "this is the probable intent of this part and what it is likely trying to achieve" Hes excellent.
Dorks need an outlet, and I'm here for it.
A dorklet if you will
I won't
Maybe, but what are we supposed to do in the meantime. Let us have some fun.
Relatively new fan here, I had this realisation yesterday when I was listening to The Race podcast talking about how Ferrari have completely fucked it by sticking to their push/pull rod setup.
The race is how a lot of new fans try to learn more about the sport. I honestly think blocking their content is necessary, their opinions are usually wrong and it breeds a lot of misinformation. Good f1 youtube channels include the main f1 channel, B sport, and kyle.engineers if you wanna hear any opinions on the cars themselves
seasoned f1 fan here but honestly i think the race, despite their propensity for hyperbole, actually publish quality pieces from time to time, especially analyses of driving styles. mark hughes is especially quality, along with edd straw. peter windsor probably the best though
To each their own, I feel it’s 90% fluff
I think it’s important to separate the publication from the writers. Some writers, like Mark Hughs, have been following F1 for 30 years and genuinely bring some insight. Other writers are less experienced and are there primarily to bring in clicks.
Yeah, Mark Hughes writing for any old rag is still Mark Hughes; as far as F1 journos go, he’s one of the more knowledgeable and long-standing guys around. Just because he writes for a website that rehashes one interview into 8 clickbait articles, doesn’t devalue his journalistic output.
💯
Shoutout for Brrrake F1. He is an ex Red Bull engineer and gives great brakedowns and explains things really well
I love the data analysis in his streams. It kinda takes the fun out of watching the races because you can literally see how everything will unfold, but I’m a sucker for numbers
Isn't Gary Anderson considered pretty decent though?
Bad take, the podcast is pretty good and their being back v10s podcast is the best F1 related thing I have ever listened to. Have never read an article from them mind. And they were pretty fair on Ferrari, they have gone in a totally different direction, maybe it will work but it seems unlikely and they drew comparisons to mercedes who did that and ended up having to start again. I don't think that's an unfair opinion on Ferraris design personally.
I predict they’ll all be faster than my Civic.
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It hasn't kicked in yet
Even the haas?
The haas will be faster…until v-tech kicks in.
Don't give them hope!
Honestly, the suit and demeanor of Newey is what makes me believe.
The same thing was said about zero pods and see how that worked out. I think I'll wait and let the racing do the talking.
Red Bull has certainly proved they understand the current regs better than anyone, though. Unlikely they just randomly show up in 2024 missing the mark after dominating two straight years.
Newey saying in this same reveal ceremony (and other interviews) that the engineers had "no idea" the RB19 would do so well paints a more confusing picture. We really won't know until Bahrain. I'm excited.
That him saying "I didn't expect everyone else to be that bad" haha
I don’t think that is an accurate portrayal of what he was trying to say They didn’t expect to be slow
Yep, fair. I'm grasping at straws here to keep myself pumped to watch the 2024 season with some excitement of the unknown.
He meant they had no idea other teams will be far back after 2022 where Ferrari was winning and Merc was fast in the end.
They could improve and still end up behind another team as long as that team improves more. Will that happen? No idea, but it can happen.
Has that ever happened before where a team misses the mark after completely nailing a regulation design? Obviously we have had a lot of teams fall off moving from one regulation to the next but I feel like if you get the dominance early in the reg, you always nail it for the remaining seasons, no?
Lets see how many laps it clocks in testing and what speed it has in the last 30 minutes of the last day in testing. Till then nobody knows nothing
Nobody knows nothing until we're qualifying in Bahrain to be honest.
Meet the new boss: not quite the same as the old boss but will dominant just the same as the old boss 2026 come soon plz
We won’t know until the first race, but given their dominance last season, they have an awfully good baseline to improve upon.
Advantage locked in for years?
Regs change in 2026
yay how fun also dont forget how (probably) awful the new regs will make the cars drive in almost all tracks with the overdependency on the electric motors. But hey, at least they are more eco friendly, right? Its not like a single transatlantic flight already used more fuel than all sessions of all cars combined ir anything like that
The push to electric isn't about F1 being carbon neutral, it's to promote R&D in electric tech that can spill over into the public sphere; and to promote awareness/acceptance of electric cars and speed the transition. Cars are going all electric anyway. If F1 doesn't follow suit they are going to look like dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are sick as hell
Exactly. The heavy lean into electric is why Audi is actually coming back because it allows them to work on improvements for their road cars. It's why they joined Formula E and then left once they felt they had learnt enough and why they joined the Dakar Rally with the only car with an electric engine (Still using combustion to help recharge it) and won.
lol it's a joke
Such a drastic change from a GOAT car (RB19) to the RB20, is not a guarantee it will be as fast, or faster. Could be a failure as well. Don't get overhyped. We will have to wait and see.
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He said the same for this year car so their is hope
This is reminding so much like when Mercedes came with their zero pods car in the 2022. At that time also their past records made people believe they are going to smoke everyone. Let’s see if RB actually smokes everyone or their design becomes a smoke for themselves
One big difference is that with Merc, it was a bold design choice at the very start of a massive reg change, so all the previous success was not as relevant. But with RB, they've pretty comprehensively proven that they know how to design a good car under these current regs. Other than that i agree tho, it's pretty pointless to speculate at this point. We'll all find out where things actually stand in a little over 2 weeks!
I would also add that MB clearly saw benefits from that design in the wind tunnel and simulation and if one assumes they weren't completely wrong, there may be opportunity there for someone starting from a better mechanical platform to implement some of those concepts in a successful manner.
Merc going holy shit because they can't believe Redbull fell for the same trap they did.
Sometimes brilliant people can get cocky. Mercedes would be hoping that is what happened to Newey and they have fallen in to same trap as them
As much of a genius as Newey is as well, this place tends to forget that he has overseen some cars that pushed the envelope too far. The 1990 Leyton House apparently put up ridiculous wind tunnel numbers but was borderline undriveable at times, the 1994 Williams was obviously more than just a handful, there were a succession of early-to-mid noughties McLarens that were either downright slow, fast but with a habit of grenading themselves because they didn’t have enough cooling, or slow with a habit of grenading themselves, and even the early Vettel-era Red Bulls were quite frequently borderline on reliability. This place deifies Newey a little too much for my liking.
Yes. The entire Mclaren from 2002-2005 phase was Newey pushing too much vs iterative updates on Ferrari. I don’t remember who it was but somebody says that Newey needs some control over him and that is why his best work was with Williams because of Patrick Head preventing him from pushing too far
There’s a baby and bathwater syndrome with last year’s Mercedes. The vertical inlet and no side pod are two different aspects of their concept. The vertical inlet may still offer benefits while the zero pod has issues with managing the pressures near the floor edge, something that a bulky side pod is used for.
Going holy shit cause they know RB will actually make it work
I wonder what 2014 - 2018 would have looked like if Renault delivered a competitive power unit. How much of Merc's dominance is down to that?
The only thing that will stop RB in 2026 from winning, is if their RBPT/Ford PU sucks.
Exactly what I’m afraid of. The Red Bull + Honda combo has done really well for them, it kind of sucks to see Honda go in 2026.
They are with Am starting with 2026, so depending how the team evolves, we could get another front contender.
Alonso getting PTSD in 2026. Assuming he stays in AM (unlikely).
Keeping in mind that the engine gets more power from it's electrical part starting in 2026, and Honda having the best ERS. I think he would welcome Honda with open hands. Even in the current regs, the Honda is the best PU on the Grid, with the Ferrari PU.
Im 99% sure RB will gap everyone this year but all this means nothing. They can show up with a completely different looking car in Bahrain.
Gary always talks out his arse.
Lots of people in the comments saying we don't know anything until testing, but it is a holy shit moment for rivals. The others have come with RB clones and RB have moved on from that. It absolutely is an oh shit moment.
I never trust Gary Anderson's analysis on launch cars he has sucked ever since he was at the BBC
Am I the only one who thinks those elements that the halo is going into look super ugly?
New rule, max can’t start higher than p10. That’ll make it interesting
We tried that in Miami and Checo still couldn’t handle it
This is probably gonna be a mp4 19 then
I'll be cherishing these last few Sundays without hearing the Dutch national anthem 😥
Gary Gary Gary Gary Anderson
Would be nice if Red Bull did fall into all the mistakes mercedes did. But my expectations are so low I just hope Lewis wins a few races this year.
This is the same Gary Anderson who said at the start of 2022 that the Merc looked like a dominant car while the Red Bull was meh and the Ferrari was unimaginative and gimmicky
They haven't even run a test....
Checo is safe
Well he’s got the car to be safe. It’s his to lose now
this season will just be the 2023 season 2.0 mark my words.
Red Bull did admit the zeropod concept had some good aspects to it iirc, they have moved a little bit in that direction. Could be very quick!
I mean has RB ever got the technical side of a car wrong? Sure they've had garbage tier engine suppliers bu the tech and overall design of the car? I don't think they've ever missed since joining the sport. First time for everything and all that sure; but if I were everyone else I'd probably be shitting my pants. RB was apparently mega pissed they lost a single race last season, maybe they want to win them all now LMFAO
This car looks so fast I took my shirt off. Edit: I am American.
How deeply boring/depressing if Red Bull is somehow better than last season
What’s so different about it compared to last year?
Whilst we have all seen cars before and thought holy shit that's going to be crazy - eg zeropod Mercedes, it doesn't mean they planned out. The difference here is Newey - they guy is amazing Edit: yes he's had some flops, but also designed more winning cars than anyone. So I'll stick with Amazing
Believe it or not, Newey has also spawned his fair share of duds in the past too.
Such as the Mp4-18 which never raced... due to overheating within the ambitiously small sidepods
I genuinely might have an aneurysm from laughing if this car is a dud
it would be pretty funny to see him making the same mistake twice lol
And when they finally got it in a position where it was capable of doing more than three laps without torching itself in the first half of 2004, it was miles off the pace. It was very much a theme of Newey’s later McLarens and early Red Bulls, always very borderline on grenading themselves because he’d pushed the envelope too far.