Red Bull have revealed stunning new footage of Max Verstappen in action at Silverstone in their latest car.
They employed a team of elite drone builders to create a bespoke drone capable of pursuing the RB20 around one of the quickest circuits on the Formula 1 calendar.
Pilot Ralph Hogenbirk flew the drone, which is capable of up to 350kph, during Red Bull’s filming day at Silverstone earlier this month. The machine can accelerate twice as fast as an F1 car, hitting 300kph in four seconds.
“I never thought I’d see a drone going that quick just for camera footage,” said Verstappen.
“I didn’t know it was following me whilst driving in the wet, and it was very close to me in some places. I was really surprised at how quickly it could keep up, and also how close it could get in the corners. It gives a bit of a different perspective to watching Formula 1.”
In order to achieve such performance, the drone’s battery life had to be cut to just three minutes.
“This is a special drone because this is the only one with a fitted camera and goes this fast,” explained Hogenbirk, of constructors Dutch Racing Gods. He controlled the drone using live images relayed to a headset, with hand controls to manoeuvre it and a separate foot pedal to adjust the camera angle.
“It’s fully custom-built, it’s one-of-a-kind that we have developed,” he said. “It is a very challenging project to create a drone that’s fast enough to keep up and keep the car in full frame, whilst capturing the shot in an interesting way.
“This was definitely the craziest shoot I’ve done so far.”
While rain affected Red Bull’s filming day, Hogenbirk also shot footage of reserve driver Liam Lawson in action at the track in dry weather at the wheel of last year’s RB19.
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Video: Drone footage of Verstappen’s RB20
Video: @redbullracing used the world’s fastest drone to film @Max33Verstappen lapping a wet Silverstone in their new RB20.#F1 pic.twitter.com/453o1q2mTT
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) February 27, 2024
Pictures: Red Bull film RB20 using drone
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