Red Bull Racing chief engineer Paul Monaghan has said that the RB20 is “probably the last big roll of the dice” in terms of car design before the 2026 reset of rules. Monaghan says that there will also be decisions made soon about how to split resources into next year so that there is sufficient time to prepare for 2026.Red Bull Racing dominated the 2023 F1 World Championship. The team’s RB19 won all but one of the 22 races held in 2023 and many expected the 2024 challenger to look similar in style.
However, with Adrian Newey at the design helm, the RB20 instead took the approach of an aggressive redesign with its sidepods and engine cover gulleys. Having won the opening two races of the 2024 season — and doing so with back-to-back Red Bull 1-2 podium finishes — it seems as if another dominant season is ahead of the Milton Keynes based racing team.
Speaking ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP, Red Bull Racing chief engineer Paul Monaghan explained the reason behind the radical RB20 design.
“If we choose to make some bigger changes on the car it opens up more options for us,” Monaghan explained. “That’s part of our reason to say, ‘let’s go ahead and change it more fully.’”
By making this redesign it also allows the team a window of time to keep uncovering car performance through upgrades before the 2026 reset. Having said that, it will soon be time for teams to look further into the future.
“It’s probably the last big roll of the dice because into 2025 you have to be looking at the 2026 car. You will see quite early on in terms of aerodynamic research if we are bumping into some limits,” said Monaghan. “At that point you have to say ‘okay, can we look at it differently and what do we need to change?’”
Monaghan also warns that there may still be questions ahead such as whether a bigger change for next year is even viable, realistic or financially achievable and even if the team have the resources to do it. On this issue Monaghan says, “That we’ll find out.”
Even though only two race weekends have been completed, the team believe that the RB20 has plenty of unlocked potential – which is an ominous thing to hear for its rivals.
“At the moment gains are still there,” Monaghan claimed. “Magnitude wise at the moment we can find similar gains to last year. I suspect towards the end of the year it may well diminish a bit, but we’ve got some brilliantly creative people and if they find it, then we’ll take it. It’s as simple as that.”
When speaking of the RB20 previously, Team Principal Christian Horner said, “It’s not a conservative evolution, there’s some great innovation on this car.”
Monaghan also reflected on how the RB20 evolved from its predecessor in his recent remarks to the media.
“The magnitude of evolution, if you watch it visually, isn’t necessarily indicative of what we have achieved in terms of lap time,” he said. “You have to make it stable. It’s not good having a peaky car that is behaving itself in one aspect of the track and not in others. To my mind we had a pretty good car last year and to drift a long way from that for greater risks, it seems an unwise choice. An evolution of what we had last year, if we put enough in it to keep ourselves quicker than the opposition, then it’s the right thing to do.”
The RB20 certainly seems to be quicker than the opposition and with the promise of more performance to come, there is every chance that the team may have the championships sewn up even quicker than last year.
Should this come to pass then it would allow Red Bull Racing even more time to prepare for 2025 and potentially continue their dominance into a fourth consecutive season.
