Red Bull RB20 will be “evolution over revolution” as it predicts F1 rival clones

The Milton Keynes-based team has been hard at work on its RB20 for several months now, having elected to switch off development of its 2023 challenger early because it was so far ahead of the opposition. 

But while it knows that it will need to make progress if it is to stay ahead of its competitors next year, the squad says that there will be no huge change of direction this winter – even if it is working on improvements. 

Asked about what can be expected from the RB20, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “Evolution not revolution.  

“All areas have been revisited in the car, and we can’t afford to have any complacency.  

“So the car is very much an evolution of a theme. We’re not reinventing the wheel, and that has been very much the route of the engineering path over the last 12 months.” 

Although the RB19 won 21 out of 22 grands prix this year, Horner says his team is in no doubt that things are going to get tougher from here on. 

He says that Red Bull is already seeing diminishing returns to the gains it is finding with the car, as he predicts the opposition to make significant progress as they copy the core design concepts that his squad has put to good use. 

“I’m fully expecting with stable regs and diminishing returns for us because I think we got to the top of the curve quicker than others, the field is going to converge,” he said. 

“There’s always a reset as you go into the following year, and I’m convinced that you’ll see a lot more cars that perhaps look like an RB19 philosophy.  

“If you stand still in this business, you tend to be going backwards. And I think that we have got up that curve quicker than others. But we’re into a law of diminishing returns.” 

Although Red Bull was one of the first teams to switch its focus to the 2024 car, Horner says its lack of wind tunnel time compared to rivals means it could not get that much of an advantage from it. 

“With the lack of wind tunnel time that we’ve had, even though we transitioned early, we still had less time in practice than a great many of our opponents,” he said. 

“So, we’ve had to be very frugal and selective of where we apply that time for RB20, and that will obviously try to build on the strengths of RB19.”