Newey Unsure Whether Red Bull Went Too Conservative With Car Development Into 2024
F1Wednesday, 07 February 2024 at 14:05
The Chief technical director of the Red Bull Racing team, Adrian Newey, suggested his team is not sure whether they have been too conservative with the development of RB20.
The first race of the season is around the corner. Light will go out in Bahrain in exactly 24 days from the time of posting this article, and everyone waits with great anticipation to see how each of the 10 F1 teams compare against each other.
Red Bull went into the winter break with a pace advantage over everyone else, and it is expected the team from Milton Keynes should start the season at the front.
However, some teams, like Mercedes or Ferrari, have hinted at significant changes to their cars, and it remains to be seen just how much performance they will be able to add.
Similar to last season, Red Bull opted for evolution rather than revolution. While it is the safest bet for the Austrian team, Adrian Newey said on the Talking Bulls podcast it might turn out to be too conservative on the Talking Bulls podcast.
"This year's car is the third evolution of that original RB18. What we don't know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative, while others have done something different? You just don't know."
The 65-year-old mentioned that he expected his team's advantage to be eradicated in 2023. Consequently, seeing how dominant the RB19 was in 2023 was a great surprise.
"[In] '23, so now the second season of those new regulations, we completely expected the grid to close up. So last year, took all of us, me most of all, by complete surprise. We really didn't expect the domination that we had."
However, as we move further from introducing regulations, the grid is expected to close up. Moreover, Newey expects some teams to resemble Red Bull's car even more than before. He added:
"This year, then, from what I understand, a lot of people, a lot of our rivals, have kind of taken a good look this time, and I suspect there'll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car."
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