Red Bull’s new car for the 2024 Formula 1 season has appeared on track at Silverstone two days before the team’s official launch.
The RB20 was filmed running at the home of the British Grand Prix with Max Verstappen at the wheel. The team appears to be conducting a filming day with its new machine, which will allow them to cover up to 200 kilometres of running.They are the third different team to run in as many days at Silverstone. Haas shook down their VF-24 at the circuit on Sunday and Aston Martin’s new AMR24 ran for the first time yesterday. The run of debuts will continue tomorrow when Mercedes’ W15 is due to appear at the track as the team holds its launch.
Verstappen and chief technical officer Adrian Newey have indicated the RB20 continues the design philosophy of its successful predecessors. The team has won the constructors championship for the last two years in a row and Verstappen is seeking a fourth consecutive driver’s title.
Red Bull head into the 2024 season seeking to continue one of the most dominant runs ever seen by a Formula 1 team. They won 21 of last year’s 22 grands prix.
However doubt has been cast over their preparations for the upcoming season following the revelation team principal Christian Horner is facing an internal investigation over his conduct. The matter appears unlikely to be resolved ahead of Thursday’s launch at the team’s Milton Keynes base a short distance away from Silverstone.
Video: 2024 Red Bull RB20 on track
Still wet @redbullracing @Max33Verstappen pic.twitter.com/WZ33LBU8tR
— Paul Bridgen (@PaulBridgen) February 13, 2024
This article will be updated
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Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
13th February 2024, 12:15
Don’t crash it.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
13th February 2024, 12:30
Be interesting to see if they present something that looks just like the RB19 for launch and testing day 1 and then roll out the “real” car at the end of testing and race 1 just to keep the other teams thinking they’ve caught up to their design.
Craig
13th February 2024, 13:02
Wouldn’t be a million miles from the likely truth seeing as the car on the first day or testing or even this shakedown will be very different to the car that starts the first race.
Alan Dove
13th February 2024, 13:08
This car, at this level of camera resolution, is almost indistinguishable form their 2022 RB18. Seems unlikely the car will be drastically different on the top surfaces by the first race.
rprp
13th February 2024, 19:06
Better pics at motorsport.com – looks to have Merc-like side channels/haunches (which I find particularly ugly) and the way the wing is attached to the nose looks a bit different. Higher, steeper sloping nose-tips seem to be a 2024 thing.
iams1mo
13th February 2024, 14:48
This is no longer allowed under the current regulations. You cannot have an A car for testing and a B car for the first race. They must be the same car.
slowmo (@slowmo)
13th February 2024, 16:43
Since when, what regulation? Pretty sure that’s rubbish, the teams can test whatever they like and turn up with a completely different package at the first race.
anon
13th February 2024, 21:35
@slowmo what they might be referring to are the homologation requirements that teams have to adhere to before the car can be tested and then before it races.
In more recent times, it is now necessary for teams to complete and pass all of the mandatory crash tests before a car can be tested (e.g. the front impact zone crash tests, the resistance against intrusion for the side panels and so forth) – because teams would test cars in the past before they were proven to be safe in the event of a crash, or even if they had failed some of the crash tests.
The teams then have to homologate the design of those key safety components – for example, the survival cell, front impact structure etc. – with the FIA during the pre-season. However, if the teams make a significant alteration to the design of any of those components, the regulations specify that the teams must then re-test the components and go through the re-homologation process to obtain permission for those new components to be used.
The regulations do therefore technically permit teams to introduce a new car which makes significant alterations in those components between testing and the first race. However, in reality, the process of designing those components, producing them and then completing the necessary testing is a major commitment of resources for a team, and one that would have a fairly significant lead time.
In practice, therefore, teams might alter non-structural bodywork between testing and the first race, but more fundamental changes to the chassis tend to be impractical if they impacted the safety homologation. We saw that last year with a number of teams – whilst they might have modified the outer skin of the sidepods to make some changes to the profile, the teams were limited in practice on what they could do without having to relocate the side impact structure (SIS), which would have required re-homologation for a more significant change.
BasCB (@bascb)
13th February 2024, 15:06
I’d think they will probably have something like a newly tuned flour on for testing and then another one for the race? Maybe a frontwing or so. But overall, given that Red Bull really are just building on the great package they already had, I would not expect too big a change from them.
AlanD
13th February 2024, 12:40
As I understand it, the teams all agreed to limit testing in order to cut costs, but with the provision of each team being able to hold a “filming” day for marketing and PR purposes. In practice, teams all seem to use their filming days as a shake-down test of the new car, and have to jump through a few hoops to pretend it is all about getting a new photo for their social media pages. F1 has too many rules, and too many lawyers working out ways to bend them. Still, good income for Silverstone which will, in turn, benefit other formulas.
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
13th February 2024, 15:50
Surely now we have a budget cap we can get shot of the no testing rule – if they can afford to test within the cap . . . . test away!
KaIIe (@kaiie)
14th February 2024, 7:12
Yes, but I’m pretty sure this was actually also a proper filming day. Don’t be surprised if you see footage from this session in promotional clips throughout the season.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
14th February 2024, 18:12
That’ll be the shot where it’s chucking it down, with spray everywhere. Not the conditions they were hoping for!
Oxnard (@montalvo)
14th February 2024, 12:15
This does not count as a filming day, this is a shakedown. All teams have always been allowed to do a shakedown.