Red Bull plan 40% of 2021 car to be new

Jon Wilde
Max Verstappen Red Bull.jpg

Dr Helmut Marko has rated Red Bull’s prospects of bringing the Honda engine operation in-house at “80-85%”.

Red Bull expect 40% of their 2021 car to be new as they build what they hope will be a World Championship challenger to Mercedes.

With the regulations static compared to the big changes that will be brought in for 2022, the next evolution of the Red Bull will be named the RB16B.

Although a strict chassis freeze has been implemented heading into next season, introduced as part of the cost-cutting measures agreed by teams in response to the global health pandemic, there is some freedom to make developments.

As well as aerodynamic surfaces remaining open to change, teams are allowed to use two development tokens to choose particular parts of the car they want to improve.

The more fundamental parts of the car will use up their token allocation in one hit, while smaller areas will take up just one.

Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, explained that while there was a lot of carry-over from the 2020 model, there would also be some fundamental work done to the cars that will be driven by Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

“I would say that of the RB16B, 60% of the car is the RB16,” said Horner, quoted by Autosport. “Like all cars, there is a large amount of carry-over of components for next year.

“We’ve got the basis of a decent car. I think we know where its weaknesses have been compared to our opponents, so that’s where we are focusing our development over the winter.

“Mercedes will have an extremely strong package next year, there’s no doubt about that.

“But we’ve just got to use all the information and tools and data we have to do the best job we can.”

Red-Bull-Ferrari-PA

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While this year’s Red Bull suffered from aerodynamic anomalies, Horner hopes those issues can be ironed out even with the mechanical aspects of the car remaining the same.

“I think a lot of the chassis stays the same, the suspension elements obviously stay the same and the gearbox is all carried over,” he said.

“It’s basically the clothes that it’s wearing will be different, which is obviously the aerodynamic surfaces.

“And of course we go into a budget-cap world as well next year, so the ability to develop is a lot more focused.

“It will be a new challenge, a different challenge next year, but I think we have the basis of a decent car.

“You can see the car generally got closer and closer to Mercedes over the last couple of months in particular. That’s been really encouraging.”

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