F1 uncovered: New Red Bull RB21 trick emerges after Verstappen’s Saudi GP pole
Max Verstappen stole another pole position from under the nose of McLaren, as the Dutchman had to wring every last drop of performance from his RB21 under the lights of the Jeddah street track.
It’s a circuit that demands you live on a knife edge, which is made all the trickier by the traits of this year’s Red Bull, something the team are working hard to dial out but for which only light relief has seemingly been found thus far.
More on the way…
Red Bull are reportedly preparing to introduce a larger suite of updates for the RB21 around Imola but, in the meantime they did arrived in Saudi Arabia with a handful of new parts to help improve the RB21’s capabilities around the difficult street circuit.
The first of those was in order to help with the increased temperatures, with the team introducing an enlarged rear cooling outlet, as seen in the image above. They paired this with the same, more extreme, large louvred cooling panel on the engine cover that was employed in Bahrain, with both used as a means to control the temperatures of the power unit and keep its ancillaries under control.
The other change announced in the car presentation document, ahead of the scheduled running, was a revised single element beam wing arrangement. The element, which is attached to the side of the crash structure has less chord and a reduced camber when compared with the other options they have in their pool.
This may seem at odds when compared with some of their rivals, who have opted to introduce new, lower downforce rear wing solutions for the challenges posed by the Jeddah street circuit. However, they did have one more trick up their sleeve, something they didn’t need to announce, as it’s more of an ad-hoc solution, with the alteration made at the circuit, rather than requiring new parts.
The upper corner of the tip section on the RB21 was trimmed on both cars, as the team evaluated whether it would provide a boost in performance and perhaps aid in balancing the car in a way that was more favourable for their drivers.
The section in question has clearly been manufactured with this in mind, as the carbon fibre can be trimmed without exposing the internal structure, allowing the team some scope to trim the car’s aerodynamic output, as there will be a tangible reduction in downforce and drag due to the impact it has on tip vorticity.
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The relentless quest for performance also requires teams to think outside the box when gathering information and data on the car’s performance, with the team having developed a unique camera pod arrangement for use during Free Practice sessions in Saudi Arabia.
The shape of the pods, mounted on either side of the airbox, appear to position the cameras in such a way that the front tyres can be monitored more effectively, whether that be with a hi-speed camera to better understand the tyres deformation, or with a infra-red camera to gain further knowledge on how the tyre temperatures evolve during the course or a lap or stint.
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