Red Bull surprises friend and foe with radical new F1 car

Red Bull Racing has been quite secretive about its new F1 car since the unveiling of the RB18. The unveiled car closely resembled a standard F1 demo model, suggesting that Red Bull might be pulling something out of the top hat in Barcelona. That certainly appears to be the case. Max Verstappen’s RB18 is causing quite a stir in the paddock, because Red Bull has really enjoyed the new regulations.

Max Verstappen drives the RB18 out. (© Red Bull Content Pool/Mark Thompson)

As connoisseurs will immediately see in the photo above, the RB18 side pods which look very different from those of the other cars. Red Bull goes for very slender ones with a fairly small air inlet at the front (photo† Beneath the sidepods is a relative sea of ​​space, flanked by two hefty barge boards that protrude from the floor. These provide a large ‘channel’ through which the wind is guided and if all goes well generates strong downforce on the floor. With other teams it looks more conventional and there are not such large ones barge boards as seen on the RB18. It was thought beforehand that the new regulations would leave little room for those aerodynamic parts at all. on this picture it is easy to see how much the RB18 differs from the cars of Mercedes and Ferrari.

According to journalists on site, the RB18 caused quite a stir in the paddock. The radical design could prove to be a classic masterstroke by chief designer Adrian Newey. In the past, he succeeded several times in conjuring up radical solutions in the event of major regulation changes, which resulted in very strong cars. It is still much too early to do a showdown with the RB18, as the first week of winter testing has just started and the season won’t start until the weekend of March 18. Today Max Verstappen is on the road for the first time with the RB18 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Tomorrow, teammate Sergio Perez will take over and on Friday they will divide the work.