Red Bull’s ‘very aggressive’ RB20 changes analysed by Romain Grosjean

Romain Grosjean has said Red Bull have made “interesting moves” with their RB20, having initially wondered whether or not they would stay the course with an upgraded RB19.

Red Bull pulled something of a surprise in unveiling their 2024 challenger, with noticeable visual differences to their all-conquering 2023 car that won all but one of the races last season.

That includes apparent similarities to last season’s Mercedes, with the Silver Arrows having taken a different design philosophy themselves this season.

Romain Grosjean: Red Bull RB20 looks ‘very aggressive’

Doing his own technical analysis of the new cars heading onto the 2024 grid, the former Haas, Renault and Lotus driver looked at the differences between the Red Bull RB19 and RB20 and noticed several changes on the outside.

Alongside that, he added that their new car is far from a “conservative” design solution, as perhaps could have been understandable in their position.

“I didn’t really know what to expect and I was surprised that we would be seeing their new car, if they were just going to carry on the car from last year with a bit of an update or if they were going to go for some interesting moves – and they did. They absolutely did,” Grosjean explained in a video on his YouTube channel.

“[The] front wing, looks like a beautiful moustache, if I’m being honest. Very, very loaded to the centre and not so much to the inside and the outside.

“It’s a different shape from the others, and look at the sidepod entrance. I was very interested in the Mercedes sidepod entrance, and the Red Bulls are not so dissimilar.

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“Very tiny, very much on the inside and very different from what we’ve seen last year.

“Look at how clearly you can see the front of the diffuser where they’re going to bring a lot of air for the ground effect, how wide the front suspension is, trying to get nothing in the way to the front of the floor. The nose goes to the main plate, that’s also a difference from last year.

“The sidepods are a little bit less extreme at the back, the way they are going down. But the difference is really at the front of the sidepods, the difference is the front wing with the nose going all the way down.

“The ‘moustache’ front wing was here last year already, the rear wing, not so much difference, but also the pullrod front suspension, different from everyone else that’s on a pushrod.

“Some interesting choices made by Red Bull, and I’m very excited to see what that car is going to be doing on track because obviously the last two years they were unbeatable, and it seem that they just didn’t go a step in a conservative direction, but they went for a very aggressive car and [made] very, very interesting choices.”

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