Gary Anderson highlights the Red Bull car concept he never ‘bought into’ this year

There was not much that Red Bull could do wrong in 2023 when it dominated the field with the RB19, winning 21 of all 22 Grands Prix in a season.

It set new records in Formula 1 and propelled Red Bull to a combined sixth Constructors’ title, a third Drivers’ Championship with Max Verstappen, and their first one-two with Sergio Perez finishing second.

Although Red Bull was winning races by margins of over 20 seconds, they still needed to work over the winter break to maintain their advantage given how close the field can become.

The Milton Keynes squad took a risk when it unveiled the first version of the RB20, showing off the sidewall cannons and zero-sidepod concept that had previously caused headaches for Mercedes. The premise was ‘If anyone can make it work, it will be Adrian Newey’ and while it looked like they were proving critics wrong, problems slowly crept in for the defending champions.

Losing Newey halfway through the campaign added pressure on Red Bull to find a solution, especially as McLaren, Ferrari and now Mercedes had caught up. By the time the second half of the second came around, Red Bull had effectively ditched the zero sidepods for a more conventional layout.

Discussing the design direction on The Race Technical podcast, F1 technical expert Gary Anderson explains why he thinks Red Bull went wrong with the concept.

Red Bull went in the wrong direction with zero sidepod concept

One of the biggest headaches with the current regulations for teams is how they must retrace their steps if an upgrade on their car fails to add performance. Mercedes spent a large part of 2023 trying to rectify their problems, which paid off this season with four wins.

Red Bull found themselves doing this halfway through this season, tracing back a lot of their problems with the RB20 to a floor upgrade made as early as 2023. Anderson explained why he felt the team made a mistake with this concept.

“I never really bought into the zero sidepods. The reality of an F1 car is that you’ve got to package the cooling system into something and you do the best you can, but you have these big piece of kit you have to put somewhere. There may be solutions you can find to minimising the sidepod, but again what we’re looking at with a ground effect car is two flow fields at the side of the car,” said Anderson.

“You need something in the way of that otherwise the airflow just goes straight through and doesn’t really do its job. You might have a slightly more efficient car but it doesn’t produce any downforce. You can’t allow the underfloor to do its job on its own, it needs a lot of help from the over body flow to make sure it’s doing its job properly. I never bought into the zero sidepod concept as a way to go, maybe it can be done, but it’s one of those things I didn’t think Red Bull would do either.”

Red Bull went radical with RB20 in a bid to find more performance

Part of the reason why Red Bull went radical with the RB20 was in an attempt to find more performance, fearing that they could hit a performance ceiling if they stayed with the RB19 concept.

The zero sidepods were a worthwhile gamble considering their advantage at the end of 2023, but it came with risks.

Red Bull broke one of the ‘golden rules’ of the current ruleset by running their car too low, effectively stalling the floor and inducing bouncing.

Questions will be asked if Red Bull can fix their problems without Adrian Newey, with likely to be a close battle between the top teams in 2025.