Red Bull has revealed the RB16, its new car for the 2020 F1 season.
Max Verstappen drove the car for the first time today at Silverstone. Team mate Alexander Albon will have his first run at a later filming day.Verstappen said his first run in the car was “Very positive.”
“The important thing today is getting the car running so that everything is up to speed before we get to Barcelona,” he added.
“It’s been a while since I was in a Formula 1 car and I was really looking forward to this morning. Once you fire up, you’re straight back into it, but before then, there’s always a sense of anticipation about what the new car and engine will feel like. Today everything went smoothly and I’m looking forward to testing next week.
“The target for the whole team is of course to be in a position to fight for the championship and improve on last year. The team is very motivated and everyone worked very hard over the winter and I think we are in a good way. I can’t wait to get started and hopefully we can be competitive from the start and then I think it can be a really interesting and fun year.”
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Pictures: 2020 Red Bull F1 car
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2020 F1 season
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Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
12th February 2020, 9:21
Interesting little details, like the division of the front section of the nose cone and also adding flaps on the sides. I hope it’ll perform just as well as it looks.
Tim
12th February 2020, 9:52
The nose looks exactly like those vacuum cleaner attachments that nobody use
Dan (@danstimo)
12th February 2020, 12:27
I believe that is the crevice tool. Make of that what you wish.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
12th February 2020, 14:20
Those attachments are like a dremel – useless most of the time, but perfect for the job when you actually need it.
James
12th February 2020, 17:43
It looks like the kind of F1 car that does a lot of cocaine. A real “snort snout”.
HJ
13th February 2020, 12:35
Hahaha, let’s hope it drives like that!
theRealMax (@millionus)
12th February 2020, 9:25
Surely this has to be the most boring year for car reveals. For bods who like me don’t pour over minute detail, its like I’ve got in my delorean and gone back a year…! :)
Pedro Andrade
12th February 2020, 9:56
It was to be expected, but I feel the same way…
Ryan
12th February 2020, 10:30
You should’ve expected it, then you wouldn’t be so disappointed
Steve
12th February 2020, 12:20
Since I started watching F1 when I was about 10 (36 years ago) I used to look forward each year to see how different the new F1 cars looked, what great new ideas were thought up (The Tyrrell’s 019 raised nose for example and then Benetton’s take on it the next year being the most prominent). You could also tell every car apart even if it had plain white livery.
All we get now are seeing that there are 33 vanes on the barge boards in stead of 27.
It’s a real shame that F1 innovation is now purely the stuff we can’t see.
Sure Feb 2021 will be like the old days, for 1 year at least. Hopefully the different teams come up with some different ideas so the cars look a bit different to each other.
Kringle
12th February 2020, 18:25
Arm around your shoulder Steve, strict regulation and instantaneous development cycles means they do indeed look the same, and if they don’t immediately they will come Melbourne.
Broke1984 (@broke1984)
12th February 2020, 11:28
Never understood why people get upset about liveries. The reality is that these are all Brands, if these major companies changed their liveries all the time then the generic public might not immediately identify the brand. Even my wife who hates f1 understands that silver = merc, Ferrari =red, and blue red and yellow is redbull.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
12th February 2020, 14:39
You can say that of the Ferrari, but not this one.
RB really did make a lot of changes for this one, judging by the exterior. 2017 2018 2019, all very similar, this is on the last year of this ruleset a departure for RB, this looks just like a mercedes with a little bit of bull.
Nitzo (@webtel)
12th February 2020, 9:26
I am intrigued by what appears to be a miniaturized tripod stand just after the nose on the number ’33’.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th February 2020, 9:30
@webtel they have had that for a few years now I think – it’s a pitot tube – others tend to have a wider/more elongated thing there, but Red Bull uses this one, I presume with more effort, but less drag.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
12th February 2020, 9:30
Aren’t those mirrors the same that the Mercedes got banned last year, I think around Baku?
Lee H (@stopitrawr)
12th February 2020, 9:47
So the Ferrari has horns on the air intake, and the Red Bull on the top section of the nose (Although, as it’s Red Bull, they’ll call them wings).
Everyone’s getting horny it seems!
Cristiano Ferreira
12th February 2020, 19:58
They are so horny that they have Christian HORNer as team principal….
Yeah, its a bad joke and pun, sorry for that.
Ban me, plz
Tim
12th February 2020, 9:55
Don’t know if it’s the shot angle, but it looks rather short, significantly shorter than Ferrari/Merc again
dk
12th February 2020, 10:50
Didn’t they always had a shorter wheelbase?
RB13
12th February 2020, 11:16
They’ve always been the shortest car. The 2021 regs permit max length of about the size of the Red Bull, slightly less by a few CM.
I wish they’d gone further and lopped a foot or two off but at least we wont have such limos from ’21.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
12th February 2020, 11:28
The nose seems quite tightened, judging from on-track action photo.
Wes (@flashofsilver)
12th February 2020, 13:20
Agreed. Similar in shape to the McLaren and Mercedes.
Serg (@)
12th February 2020, 11:41
The track looks dry—why is Verstappen on wet tires? Are there any tire usage limitations during shooting days?
Search
12th February 2020, 13:08
It are special demo compounds, mandatory for ‘filming days’.
AliceD (@aliced)
12th February 2020, 13:32
Could be because it is so cold, about 7 degrees centigrade air temp.
ColdFly (@)
12th February 2020, 11:44
Why would they share so much detail?
I can only assume that this is not the car (aerodynamic parts) that will start in Melbourne.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
12th February 2020, 12:35
@coldfly Yep I agree an awful lot can change between now and Melbourne. It will be interesting to see how many bolt on parts are brought to testing by all the teams just to keep others guessing.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
12th February 2020, 14:23
@coldfly – I wonder if teams actively engage in misdirection to mislead others. Not just camouflaging areas or not fitting on some new parts, but actively putting on a part they know is sub-par, just to mess with other teams, and force them to spend some resources in investigating it.
slowmo (@slowmo)
12th February 2020, 23:59
The thing is that would take considerable effort in order to not look fake and it will be spotted in the tests anyway. I think the reason they aren’t too worried is parts in isolation make very little difference as they’re built around the cars aerodynamic characteristics. People spent years trying to copy the Red Bull High Rake designs when they were top dog but since the hybrid era Mercedes have ruled the roost with less Rake and instead built the car around a longer wheelbase with a stabler aero baseline. In order to copy Mercedes concept though you’d have to be prepared to make a loto
Lenny (@leonardodicappucino)
12th February 2020, 12:04
It’s weirdly surprising even though it isn’t new. No camo launch livery this year, wonder if they’ll do something for testing or not
Jere (@jerejj)
12th February 2020, 13:01
The same as with Ferrari, not considerably different from the predecessor, which in this case is RB15, yes, there are differences, and the overall outlook doesn’t hugely differ.
jv
12th February 2020, 13:45
Same regs, so obviously it’s just an evolution of what they did last year.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th February 2020, 15:33
@jv Indeed.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th February 2020, 15:32
‘but’ the
hobo (@hobo)
12th February 2020, 16:22
@jerejj – This is just supposition, but I think most teams are spending a lot of their time and energy and resources on 2021.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th February 2020, 17:07
@hobo Could be.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
12th February 2020, 16:42
Team to beat.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
12th February 2020, 22:57
I agree, Mercedes and Ferrari are going to have to work hard this year if they want to one of their drivers to win the WDC.
Cristiano Ferreira
13th February 2020, 3:02
Only if Red Bull stop its rececent habit of starting the season off the pace, only to pick it up when the championship is almost over.
To me Red Bull as always the real threat to Mercedes but that habit that i mentioned above must go if they want to have a shot at the WDC and WCC.
Cristiano Ferreira
13th February 2020, 3:02
*Recent habit
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th February 2020, 8:15
the backend of the car is very small the behind of the sidepods are also much smaller. As this is the only car on track it’s the car with most evolution from next year. (So far atleast)