How Red Bull is still improving its RB20 despite upgrade doubts

Max Verstappen’s suspicion that something has “gone wrong” with Red Bull’s RB20 explains well why the team was experimenting with some older specification parts in Zandvoort last weekend.

In an attempt to get to the bottom of whatever it is that has made its 2024 challenger “more difficult to drive”, Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez split floor configurations in a bid to help the squad gather data.

But while efforts are focusing on understanding if the major floor change made at Imola was the trigger for its recent struggles against McLaren and Mercedes, that has not stopped it continuing to try to eke out gains from other areas of the car.

Red Bull arrived at Zandvoort with a number of small tweaks for the RB20, as the high downforce sidepod and engine cover arrangement introduced at the Hungarian Grand Prix returned – having been taken off for high-speed Spa.

There was a slight tweak though, with the team having modified the size of the rear cooling outlet to better serve the demands of the Zandvoort circuit [3].

This narrower arrangement will provide additional versatility in its cooling set-up over the coming races, with the team also able to swap the cooling panels on the side of the engine cover to better suit its requirements too.

The new inlet is similarly sized to the one used with its other engine cover arrangement, but the change in bodywork also results in the outlets that were cut into the rear quarter panel being removed too.

In addition there were also a new set of mirror stays and fins around the cockpit on the RB20, as the team looks to make some small tweaks to the airflow’s behaviour as it tracks down the car.

This was likely in response to the arrival of the new sidepod and engine cover bodywork first seen in Hungary and used again at Zandvoort.

Red Bull RB20 mirror comparison

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There are several differences to the arrangement too, with the horizontal mirror stay no longer merged directly to the mirror housing (white arrow), which has also been modified to suit the vertical baffle that now resides between the two surfaces and likely sheds a stronger vortex downstream over the sidepod.

The outer vertical stay has also been modified (red arrow), with a shorter arrangement taking the place of the tail-like solution previously employed, which will alter how the airflow around the sidepod’s shoulder region behaves.

Meanwhile, the canard-style winglet mounted on the side of the halo has been deleted and a vertical fin now resides atop the half-crescent upper sidepod inlet (blue arrow)

The winglet is kinked in the upper half in order to suit the contours of the halo fairing alongside too.

The drivers also opted to run different downforce levels on their cars at Zandvoort, with Verstappen opting for the higher downforce rear wing configuration, like he had run in Hungary.

Perez, however, opted for less downforce, similar to how they ran both cars at Spa.

Haas VF-24 front wing comparison

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New front wing at Haas
Haas had a number of new components for the VF-24 at the Dutch Grand Prix as it looks to improve flow at the front of the car in order to unlock more performance further downstream.

The new parts were only raced by Nico Hulkenberg, but it was a scrappy weekend for the team with incidents and mixed weather that made it difficult to gather much feedback on it.

In making the change, Haas has taken an holistic overview to the car’s front end aerodynamics.

The nose, front wing and front suspension fairings have all been altered in tandem to leverage the performance that can be garnered from one another.

The nose has now been extended to meet with the mainplane, rather than the second element, with the tip shape altered.

There is also a more rounded profile selected in order that it works more harmoniously with the central section of the wing.

This has also allowed the team to alter the flap distribution, with narrower static inboard upper flaps beside the nose.

This allows for wider moveable sections, both of which have less chord height than their counterparts and more curvature across their span.

The slot gap separator brackets have also been reconfigured across the entire wing, with less needed between the mainplane and second element due to the nose now being connected to them.

Furthermore, the aerodynamically shaped brackets usually found between the upper two elements have been exchanged for more traditionally shaped horseshoe-style brackets.

The type of changes that Haas has made with these updates are incredibly important with this generation of cars, as explained by Principal Aerodynamicist Simone Benelli.

“The main topic, on the inboard side, is to try and improve the flow quality for the front flow intake and the sidepod undercut, because there’s nothing under the chassis,” he said.

“Everything you create in terms of loss close to the front wing is free to travel without much control. So you have to control it upstream with the front wing.

“Then outboard we are continuing with our development, which is constantly trying to improve the bottom tail wake. It is this which is responsible for some inconsistency in certain cases on front load, in low speed, medium speed, and crosswinds in general.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble