marcel171281 wrote: ↑13 Feb 2024, 22:16
Why would RB drop the path they have been following for 2 years and adopt the Mercedes overbite/midwing? The inlet will be on top, following the path of the last 2 years, moving it futher and futher upwards. In these crappy pictures it is obscured by the mirror and mirror mount. The NACA duct style inlet is between the mirror and cockpit edge. It is the biggest underbite ever.
They may have maxed out the potential of the path they were going down. Whatever the reason is behind the switch you can be sure that it's at least as fast as the rb19.
If they removed the crease I'm guessing they have enough airflow going through the undercut to seal the floor and diffuser.
I speculate they prioritized floor edge performance for the RB18 and 19 by going with an underbite intake and now they are confidence in their platform they have gone for an overbite.
So now when the intake starts to be a restriction, it would then create a high pressure region in front of the intake which would seal the floor more and the beamwing would be unaffected by this unlike before.
If this is the case I bet on seeing better low speed performance like we see from AMR and McLaren.
Lastly, just because Mercedes weren't able to make it work that doesn't mean that the ideas and concept were horrible, it just means Mercedes can't make it work. Red bulls goal is to make the fastest car of the season even if it means taking inspiration from William's which redbull did early on in the season when William's were struggling.