Red Bull has revealed the car Max Verstappen will use to defend his world championship title in 2022.
Images of the new RB18 chassis were presented in an online event broadcast by the team as well as a group of its fans on social media. Red Bull offered up to 5,000 of their supporters the chance to stream to launch themselves.The team indicated the model shown today, which bears a close resemblance to the show car presented by FOM last year, will look very different when they arrive in Bahrain for the season-opening round next month. “By the time we get to the first race the car is not going to look very much like this,” said team principal Christian Horner.
Verstappen has chosen to swap his regular number 33 for number one, as he is entitled to as the reigning world champion.
Honda, which designed and built the power units Red Bull will continue to use this year, are no longer identified on the car. However the RB18 will carry the logos of HRC – Honda Racing Corporation – which is supporting the new Red Bull Powertrains division in building the units for Red Bull and AlphaTauri.
The RB18 also prominently displays the logos of Oracle, which has joined as title sponsor for the new season.
The team’s new car has been built to the new technical regulations which have been introduced for the 2022 F1 season. It is the second of this year’s contenders to appear, Haas having presented the first pictures of their VF-22 last week.
Pictures: 2022 Red Bull F1 launch
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Qeki (@qeki)
9th February 2022, 16:25
Well that was fast
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
9th February 2022, 16:29
Kind of expected given that they were presenting the FOM car with RBR livery.
Retired (@jeff1s)
9th February 2022, 16:54
Being impeded to attend testing at Montmeló, will we mere mortals only get to see the real cars before the Bahrain Exclusivity testing ?
Mashiat (@mashiat)
9th February 2022, 19:48
@jeff1s I believe test highlights will be posted at the end of each day, so we should be able to look at cars there. And some media/journalists might be present, so expect them to highlight anything new on cars.
Yes
9th February 2022, 18:47
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/soi3w9/f1_car_launches_lets_get_this_straight/
https://www.reddit.com/user/wishbackjumpsta/
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th February 2022, 23:06
Eh, I don’t believe it. This car is noticeably different to the Silverstone show car. It’s clearly not just a copy they’re revealing.
The nose, the sidepods, the rear wing, the barge board area (whatever that’s called now) are all very different to the show car.
If people can’t see the difference they’re not looking hard enough, or don’t know what to look for.
For sure the teams would have bought some copies of the show car to paint up but I bet these would have been used for internal events. Not to reveal as their car for the 2022 season.
Yes
10th February 2022, 0:06
Apparently there are two versions of the show car. Doesn’t mean it’s true but is entirely possible. Having said that it does look very similar to the show car 8f not the same. As many others have also said incl scarbs F1
Even the airbox inlet is the same shape as here
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/rua9s5/few_2022_chassis_being_transported_by_airplane/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
grat
10th February 2022, 0:31
And yet, it’s virtually identical to the car Mercedes has been teasing.
https://twitter.com/GiulyDuchessa/status/1491458585494048774
You’ve been had. :)
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
10th February 2022, 8:56
I didn’t want to believe it either….. but there ya go.
Adam Hardwick (@fluxsource)
9th February 2022, 16:30
Oracle and Red Bull.
Perfect for each other.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
9th February 2022, 16:34
The Oracle of Graz talks a lot of Red Bull
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
9th February 2022, 16:36
@fluxsource
+1 from an Oracle Certified Professional :)
Adam Hardwick (@fluxsource)
9th February 2022, 17:15
@tifoso1989 My condolences.
Marvin The Martian (@marvinthemartian)
9th February 2022, 16:31
Generic FOM car with RB colour scheme
Next!
HAL
9th February 2022, 17:55
Yeah, we all understand the need to keep their secret as long as possible… But it kind of defies the sole purpose of these event. Why even bother ? I suppose Oracle is happy, but apart from that…
tielemst
9th February 2022, 19:09
Do they need another reason? :)
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th February 2022, 23:09
I really don’t know what people are expecting or looking for. There are clear differences. People are going to be very disappointed if no teams have settled on a better philosophy. The dimensions of development areas and shapes required are very restricted and prescribed and teams may all just settle on the one way to get the best aero out of those areas.
grat
10th February 2022, 0:34
We’re expecting something that will resemble the actual race car.
I understand that launch cars are not necessarily final concepts, but this is in fact, an FOM car with livery. Haas apparently has some interesting elements on theirs which aren’t FOM spec, but the Red Bull is what we’ve been seeing for over a year.
Please point out key differences between the RB18 “reveal” and the FOM concept car(s).
The Edge (@the-edge)
9th February 2022, 16:32
Fake car
Fake launch
Fake Champ…agne ?
jff
9th February 2022, 16:37
I guess the fake champagne was made from sour grapes :P
Omar R (@)
9th February 2022, 16:55
KABOOM!!! You bombed him off the edge
The Edge (@the-edge)
9th February 2022, 17:09
You’d have to ask Masi… he gifted it
Dex
9th February 2022, 17:10
Well done, sir.
David BR (@david-br)
9th February 2022, 20:06
Actually very good.
Stash (@stash)
10th February 2022, 14:07
It’s not fair to talk about Hamilton like that. He will prove himself this year that it was not all about the car that anyone could have won in. You will see.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
9th February 2022, 16:33
Typical. Sad. I miss the old days.
Becken Lima (@becken-lima)
9th February 2022, 16:33
The usual RB livery matches nicely on this FIA template. Nice job, Red Bull!
bosyber (@bosyber)
9th February 2022, 16:38
Yep @becken-lima, saw people comment on half a banana at the front but honestly, with a nose like that it looks pretty good; hope it still dus under real light on the actual car otherwise we have to be really glad for all those night races I suppose.
I prefer the openness of HAAS saying ahead of time it wasn’t the real car, but then actually showing (yes a render true, not a physical thing) an early version of their car; Red Bull seemingly talking about the car as if it is their real car is a bit silly especially because it is soo transparent (though, if that’s the real thing it would be funny right?), why not talk about the concept of the 2022+ F1 car, that way the drivers don’t have to pretend.
jff
9th February 2022, 16:50
I will be the last to claim it’s their real car (also because the boss said so).
But it is not the FOM car either; front wing, step down to the floor, air inlets, and even camera mounts are all quite different.
People who claim that this is the FOM car are lazier than they claim ORBR (is that what we call them no) has been ;)
petebaldwin (@)
9th February 2022, 16:55
Yeah the Haas launch was full of people claiming it was the FOM car so it was to be expected here as well.
Becken Lima (@becken-lima)
9th February 2022, 18:16
C’mon, man… let people have some fun.
anon
9th February 2022, 22:26
jff, when FOM introduced their concept car, they produced two different versions of the car – whilst most are familiar with the version that was wheeled out onto the circuit, there was a second version which was placed within the paddock https://www.f1fanatic.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/first-pictures-of-2022-F1-cars-1-1000×600.jpg
If the car that Red Bull have wheeled out here isn’t that car, it would take a lot of explaining why it is remarkably similar – the version in that link has the same three piece front wing as on the car Red Bull unveiled, the same shaped air intake, the same sidepod intake shape, that same step in the floor matches the same step in the show car version and the deflectors are the same.
You also have the issue that, just like the show car, this car quite clearly doesn’t have any form of DRS mechanism fitted to it, even though that is required for 2022. Speaking of the front wing, the front wing on the show car in the above link and the front wing on this car that Red Bull have revealed are not only the same in shape, they are both based on the same draft version of the 2022 regulations that was made obsolete several months ago by subsequent changes and would now be illegal under the revised regulations.
Either we have to conclude that Red Bull have somehow managed to get their design process for their 2022 car so badly wrong that they have just shown us a car that doesn’t actually comply with the 2022 regulations, or they’ve just painted the show car in their 2022 livery and used the event to promote their new sponsorship deal. Since the former is rather unlikely, I would say the evidence rather more strongly points to the latter.
jff
10th February 2022, 7:56
Interesting insight that it’s not complying with the 2022 rules.
PS also to this image there are some changes, albeit a lot less; thus not totally lazy ;)
grat
9th February 2022, 16:36
“Hey, look! Our 2022 car! Except… it’s not our 2022 car, we’re just yanking your chain.”
*sigh*
L.G.
9th February 2022, 16:36
For the first time since 2014 the reigning world champion will be on the grid. It’s been a long time.
jff
9th February 2022, 16:38
??
or are you merely referring to the #1?
MacLeod (@macleod)
9th February 2022, 23:27
ofcourse he did……
Asanator (@asanator)
9th February 2022, 16:38
Tiny little HRC logo on the engine cover lol
Jere (@jerejj)
9th February 2022, 16:40
Pretty much what I expected. I also predicted the red-colored Red Bull text on both wings a la 2016 & ’17 since Honda’s withdrawal became official. Equally Red Bull Powertrains logo on the PU cover, but Red Bull text nevertheless & no Honda text or logo anywhere even if the HRC logo is an indirect or slightly hidden reference.
zomtec (@zomtec)
9th February 2022, 16:49
So RB built a physical model of the FIA show car to present their livery? There must be more to that than that.
RandomMallard
9th February 2022, 16:56
@zomtec No, they stole the model from Haas, and will then drive it up the road to Silverstone for Aston Martin tomorrow ;-P
JoshJ81
9th February 2022, 16:59
There is more to it, look with your eyes and match up the model from Silverstone to this reveal. Similar, yes, same, no.
anon
9th February 2022, 22:39
@zomtec it’s been confirmed that FOM built several show cars that they were then selling to the teams for the right to use those cars in promotional material, and that Red Bull is understood to have bought multiple cars for that exact purpose.
Red Bull therefore will not have needed to build the car themselves – this will have been built by FOM for Red Bull for promotional purposes.
MacLeod (@macleod)
9th February 2022, 23:29
If you can drive them they have a good chance!
Hosford90
10th February 2022, 0:03
Yeah…except this clearly isn’t the FOM show car.
anon
10th February 2022, 7:54
Hosford90, I have already explained previously that this car has been clearly identified as the show car because this car, just like the show car, complies with the draft regulation package that existed back in June 2021, but does not comply with the regulations now.
If it is not the show car, then please explain why Red Bull would show a launch car that so many have been able to look at and say “that clearly doesn’t comply with the current regulations”?
grat
10th February 2022, 2:17
There are two show cars (at least) out there, and supposedly, FOM sold a few dummy chassis to various teams. This is clearly the same car that Mercedes is teasing, and matches the *second* of the FOM show cars.
Scarbs has a fairly scathing “review” of the revealed RB18 on his twitter.
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th February 2022, 8:14
While Scarbs is good he seems to miss on the Haas the front suppension which is edited on the foto. I think i wait untill that Mercedes Aero guy gives his view of the car. I noticed the animation parts were different then the car on the floor/pictures.
So this could be RB first attempt on the now not current regulations and made this their livery showmodel.
Or they are going to ignore the current regulations..
Tim (@tsgoodchild)
9th February 2022, 16:51
Scrap all these launches. Do a single televised event on the eve of the first test session with the teams revealing their new car, in test-spec and livery. Simple. But that requires 10 teams working together…never going to happen.
Omar R (@)
9th February 2022, 16:59
@tsgoodchild would be good to at least work with 5 dates, reverse from last year’s WCC ranking. Kind of the prefight face-offs for boxing or MMA.
Imagine the banter aand quips between Steiner and Capito, Brown and Binotto, but especially between Horner and Wolff!
Tim (@tsgoodchild)
9th February 2022, 17:25
100% – I am so amazed there isn’t a pre-season show of sorts. It has everything a US-owned F1 would clamour over…!
RandomMallard
9th February 2022, 16:55
That was… underwhelming.
I was so hoping for something different this time. Those of you who saw my comment on the RB thread yesterday would know that. Those of you saw both my comments about the RB on the Haas thread yesterday would also know I was extremely tired :-P
They have all this design team (and their livery team is excellent, look no further than their camo liveries or the Turkey livery last season), but this is pretty much exactly the same colour scheme they’ve had since 2016. And iconic as it is, it does get boring after a while. Come on RB, even Ferrari have made more major changes to their livery than you have since 2016. And they were just different types of red!
I don’t like the number 1 on the nose. Not because I don’t like the idea of Verstappen being champion, I think I personally feel fine about that now, and I’d much rather see positive change made for the future than retrospective change made to last season (partly because I know the latter will almost never happen).
No, I just don’t like it because it just looks cartoonish and amateur in my opinion. It’s big, chunky and kinda looks out of place. I much prefer the thinner, sleeker, numbers RB have used in recent years. I know it’s difficult to fill the space with the number “1”, after all, it’s a thin line with a couple of shorter lines coming out of it at each end (and is almost the polar opposite to 33, as a formation of shapes), but I feel RB could have come up with a better alternative to this.
amian
9th February 2022, 17:00
Why they chose not to put the “1” on the yellow spot is beyond me. Like seriously?
Omar R (@)
9th February 2022, 17:01
Oh, you willl be so bored with the Ferrari launch then!
RandomMallard
9th February 2022, 17:14
@omarr-pepper The Ferrari launch never usually excites me anyway to be honest. “Oh… it’s red”. Not expecting anything from them. With RB, I was at least hoping (if not expecting) something different
Robbie (@robbie)
9th February 2022, 17:43
I take your point about something different, but I wonder if this was not the season to do that while they ride on the coat tails of Max being reigning WDC, and would rather have some memory recognition carrying over from last season, or what have you. Just speculating of course. I did wonder in the initial parts of the reveal when they were showing people’s texts flashing by around the car, and it looked more like an Alpine blue, if that was what they were going with, similar to the colour on a Red Bull can.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
9th February 2022, 22:27
RandomMallard,
I think you are more used to this decade boring online launches that serve almost to nothing apart from displaying the livery and sponsors. I’ve grown up watching those mega launch events on the Italian channel where the actual car was presented by all the senior staff of the dream team : Montezemolo, Todt, Brawn, Martinelli… I still remember for example watching the 1999 car driven by Schumacher to the Rai studio which was fantastic :
https://youtu.be/547s66S6ygw
amian
9th February 2022, 16:58
Wow, those sidepods are too beautiful to be real. We haven’t seen such regularly-shaped sidepods in more than a decade. Very similar looking to IndyCar’s Dallara as well.
It’s a very pretty car I gotta say.
And I simply love how FIA was — FINALLY, AFTER A DOZEN OF TRIES !!! — able to regulate the shape of the nose, so it has a nice un-broken line from the tip to the driver’s cockpit, without creating a loophole for the teams to come up with some hideous aborted-walrus-fallus shape as has been the case so many times in the last 15 years.
Andy (@andyfromsandy)
9th February 2022, 17:19
Red Bull presents first images of a new car that will not be for the 2022 F1 season!
hein
9th February 2022, 17:28
I’m disappointed that just as we’ve moved to a larger diameter wheel, they are obscuring it with an ugly cover/duct. I suppose this is going to be standard across the board?
Robbie (@robbie)
9th February 2022, 17:36
Yeah my understanding is they are there as just one of several measures primarily to help reduce the amount of wake behind the cars ie. dirty air.
erikje
9th February 2022, 18:01
It’s mandatory in the new rules.
iCarbs (@icarby)
9th February 2022, 17:41
Yup, all these launches will be a waste of time, televised practice awaits.
Sergey Martyn
9th February 2022, 18:09
Looks like Horner is impersonating Steve Jobs.
Qeki (@qeki)
9th February 2022, 18:43
It is the show car. Nowadays when almost anyone can go to the internet and share anything. F1 teams don’t want to risk anything. Rewind 20 years and we would see the actual cars shown by the press and on news. F1 need to rethink these car launches because they are basically now livery launches.
RocketTankski
9th February 2022, 21:47
Here’s a look at our new design. The car we race won’t look like this design. Neither will that be the final design. But the logos designs are real. For now.
Michael Norman (@mick80)
9th February 2022, 22:06
The cars need a shorter wheel base. Beautiful looking car just really wish they’d go smaller
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th February 2022, 22:50
It’s the engines, once they get rid of the MGU in 2026 it should be smaller.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th February 2022, 22:51
MHU-H*
grat
10th February 2022, 2:20
MGU-H barely adds any length to the engine, as most of the teams have it located in the V.
The engine will be smaller, but the cars won’t. Still gotta have 110KG of fuel in a tank, still gotta have the battery store, and I’m sure if some team has the audacity to shrink or otherwise innovate their ES, the FIA will outlaw it.
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th February 2022, 8:19
And the Honda was already the smallest engine so i don’t think that is the big problem but your right i htink it’s the battery who takes the most room.
Jon (@johns23)
9th February 2022, 22:30
So these are all just livery launches. Either way it will like nice!
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th February 2022, 22:58
I’m not really sure what people are expecting to see with regards to all the comments about it just being a livery, or the same as the silverstone show car. That’s what the cars will generally look like… If there is any crazy designs they’ve come up with of course they’re not going to show them now, they’ll run it in a base configuration in testing for a base line and use the crazy parts for a few runs for comparison. Then they’ll decide what to take to race 1 afterwards.
If I was HAAS I would be quite happy seeing this. They’ve got the same maximum width sidepods, just a different inlet size. Same nose configuration. Some differences on the wing and front wing endplates. The philosophy seems the same in general.
Can’t wait to see someone with more expertise really pick it apart, but as it is, doesn’t look like there’s anything standing out. P.S Newey’s high rake is finally gone. Ground effects be like that…
grat
10th February 2022, 2:25
There are significant difference between what Haas is showing (an early design based on the 2022 rules), and what Red Bull is showing (the FOM design with no DRS, no wheel covers, fake suspension, and outdated aero regs).
I predict not a single team will have the smooth flowing rear wing that the RB18 is “sporting”.
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th February 2022, 8:20
I am sure the rear wings will look all the same as it’s locked into the regulations.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th February 2022, 0:51
@skipgamer some of it is that but it’s also due to teams running a spacer between the engine & gearbox to extend the length of the back rear floor/bodywork for aero benefits.
I think Craig Scarborough last year posted some images on twitter showing this and suggesting teams were adding 20-30cm to the rear of the cars with those spacers.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th February 2022, 0:52
That was meant as a reply to the comment about the length of modern cars.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th February 2022, 0:57
Here is one of his comments on it. If you look at the drawing, You have the clutch on the back of the engine & then most of the gap between that and the gear cluster is simply there to extend the wheelbase.
Scarbs says that most of the gearbox housing is just used for that purpose.
https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1305863797194842113?t=tlmu8GM0NsufSqLWhh_RjA&s=19
Nogarossi
10th February 2022, 12:54
I know you have to pay for the site and there is a paid option (which i’ve subscribed to in the past), but the huge pillar adverts are ruining your site experience a bit. I’m getting a HSBC ad that I can’t close, and it covers 20% of the car image links!!