Why Red Bull’s big RB21 Imola upgrade will have everyone taking note

Red Bull have arrived at Imola with a raft of new parts as the team look to unlock some of the RB21’s latent potential and kickstart their season as the European leg begins.

The car has shown flashes of what’s at the teams disposal so far this year, but they’ve been unable to regularly extract that performance and really take the fight to championship leaders McLaren.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

The package that arrived this weekend includes a revised sidepod arrangement, with the designers not only taking inspiration from their competitors but also a new feature that will have their competitors taking note too.

The main change to the layout sees a similar mid-wing arrangement being employed by Red Bull to the one used by McLaren, which in turn provides a more rearward position for the upper letterbox-style inlet beneath, which itself seems to have been narrowed slightly too in order to accommodate the other alterations.

The switch to the mid-wing layout has also prompted some adjustments to the wing mirror arrangement, with the outermost stalk now merged with the tip of the mid-wing, creating a frame rather than being sat inboard atop the sidepod bodywork.

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The vertical inboard baffle, beside the mirror, has been retained, though.

The new feature that adorns the sidepod bodywork on the RB21 is a vane mounted beneath the horizontal, letterbox-style inlet (arrowed) and which will undoubtedly have an impact on the airflow’s behaviour as it makes its way around the undercut in which it is mounted.

The changes being implemented will likely also see the floor, first introduced in Miami, return to the car too as the performance uplift that had been anticipated hadn’t shown up in isolation but might work in conjunction with these new parts.

There’s also some changes that have been made to one of the rear-suspension fairings and the rear brake duct inlet and outlets as the team look to tidy up both aerodynamic efficiency and cooling at the rear of the RB21.

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