Collins 'Highly Suspicious' Of Red Bull's RB20 That Was Revealed At Official Launch

F1
Tuesday, 20 February 2024 at 23:15
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Former Aston Martin's strategy engineer and current analyst for Sky Sports, Bernie Collins, discussed Red Bull's shocking RB20.
Red Bull officially unveiled their car five days ago, and while it is suggested it was only a launch version and that we should expect to see multiple upgrades on the car in Bahrain, the team already surprised everyone with a very brave design.
Red Bull showed a car that moves closer to Mercedes's abandoned concepts of zero-pod design, which the German team hasn't been able to make work. Bernie Collins said on the Sky F1 podcast:
"Yeah, I am highly suspicious but let's see. If they do rock up with that car, then it's a brave, brave move because they could have easily continued to develop the car they had. That would have been, I think, the safer bet."
It is strange because even the team principal of Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, called Mercedes's old concept "clearly failed." Did Red Bull find something that Silver Arrows were missing the whole time?
Another question you might ask? Why have they been working on a concept that was clearly not successful in the previous two seasons? Collins, on the other hand, isn't surprised by that at all.
"I'm not surprised they've been working on it, because as soon as you see another car with a very different concept, you start to look at have you missed something. Even a slower car, you start to think, is there something there that we're missing?"
Helmut Marko now confirmed his team would indeed be trying to create something similar to what Mercedes had in 2022 and 2023, but, of course, better.
Could Red Bull really make it work? The former Aston Martin strategy engineer suggested the team from Milton Keynes had to see some enormous potential to go in the direction they indicated at the launch. She added:
"I'm just surprised that they've gone with it. So they've clearly – if they go with it, they've clearly seen something that means they think they can beat their previous-developed car."