Red Bull Racing Formula 1 boss Christian Horner has clarified that the team’s 2024 Formula 1 car is “not a conservative evolution” from its dominant predecessor.
Having won all but one of the 22 races held in 2023, one could forgive Red Bull for simply opting for a copy-and-paste approach for the upcoming campaign.
Instead, its brand-new RB20 challenger has reversed the sidepod inlet shape of the RB19 to adopt an overbite style and features deep gulleys in the engine cover.
“I think there’s some great innovation on the car as well which will no doubt get scrutinized over the coming weeks,” Horner told media including Motorsport Week.
“Creativity has been strong in the team and you can see that in some of the solutions that they’ve come up with. It’s not a conservative evolution, there’s some great innovation on this car.”
The engine gulleys drew comparison to those seen on the Mercedes W14 in 2023 and Horner detailed that simulations showed this approach should reflect well in terms of performance.
“It’s not tactical, it’s based on performance and what we’re seeing through our simulation tools,” he added.
“Obviously the car looks quite visibly different in certain areas to last year. Only the stopwatch will tell but in the virtual world we wouldn’t have committed it to design if we didn’t feel it was better.”
Narrowly missing out on a 100% race win record, Red Bull squashed the competition as it amassed more than twice the overall points of its nearest competitor.
The odds are stacked in Red Bull’s favour when it comes to claiming more titles in 2024, but Horner admits that bettering last year’s record run will be hard to achieve.
“I think to set a target of winning all the races would be very difficult,” Horner acknowledged.
“I mean, we achieved 21 out of 22 last year and only Singapore got away from us, so technically we can improve, but logically there’s going to be convergence with stable regulations.
“We can see other cars have had an influence from RB19, we’re expecting other teams to converge.
“I think the team have done a wonderful job on RB20, they haven’t sat on their laurels and you can see that they’ve pushed the boundaries with the car. We’ll only see when we get on track what the relative pecking order is for the start of the season.”
It’s clear that Red Bull isn’t planning to rest on its laurels with the RB20, from chasing gains in the simulator to ensuring the evolution isn’t conservative there appears to be a hunger to push the boundaries of performance to the absolute limit.
“It’s marginal gains in all areas, so you’re constantly looking to try and evolve,” Horner said.
“If you look at the detail on the car there’s some really exquisite detail, and I think the team… There’s been no complacency. They’ve continued to evolve, to push the boundaries.”
Whilst Red Bull is making a step on from the RB19, the team’s rivals will be looking to explore how to uncover the 2023 title-winning car’s secrets.
The likes of Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin are all positive about making strides in 2024, with Aston Techincal Director and former Red Bull employee Dan Fallows going as far as to say the reigning champions are beatable.
Undoubtedly, part of catching Red Bull will be in understanding what made the RB19 tick and Horner can see its influence elsewhere following the launch of other teams’ 2024 designs.
“You can see that RB19 being the most successful car of all time has had an influence on quite a few cars,” he said.
“But yeah there’s some interesting details on some of the cars that demonstrates the creativity that there is in Formula 1, and despite it being stable regs there’s still interesting solutions that are being delivered by others.”
Horner has disclosed that the car unveiled on Thursday won’t be too different from the one that hits the track in Bahrain for pre-season testing in less than a week.
“I think just the way things are set at the moment there’s probably limited change between test one and race one,” he addressed.
“With the budget cap the way it is now you’ve got to be much more selective in your spending and your development.”
