Along with a tweet "liveries are meant to last", Red Bull Racing showed off a first image of its new RB16, featuring a nearly identical livery compared to its predecessors.
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
This is indeed a long awaited increase of detail at the rear wing end plates of RB. But what does it do, is it for drag reduction?
If we look at how they're shaped, the seem to bleed air towards the center of the end plates. Likely following the two counter rotating vortecies coming from the floor. This area is also in line with the wake of the rear tire, so perhaps an attempt to clear up that turbulence.
It looks to me that the end plates are channeling air from the diffuser area over the three new canards/winglets added to the end plates. Like a reverse s-duct on the rear wing.
They look like the chicken wings on the bargeboards.
If we look at how they're shaped, the seem to bleed air towards the center of the end plates. Likely following the two counter rotating vortecies coming from the floor. This area is also in line with the wake of the rear tire, so perhaps an attempt to clear up that turbulence.
It looks to me that the end plates are channeling air from the diffuser area over the three new canards/winglets added to the end plates. Like a reverse s-duct on the rear wing.
They look like the chicken wings on the bargeboards.
Thanks, as i understand it correctly it might clear up the underwing and back tyre turbulence a bit, which may be improves even the diffuser.
I've noticed that the front end of the car has received the majority of the attention up until now. The fact they're focusing more on the rear end, shows they feel they have the front end working as intended. Improving the rear end will let them get more out of the front end, I just hope they don't go overboard and cause too much understeer.
If I understand the RB philosophy they use a lot of rake, and the rake varies at speed, one of the big reasons that the team takes a while to get the best out of the car is because they have to find the rake sweet spots at different speed ranges for them to get the most out of the car. If they get it wrong the car becomes undrivable, either too much diffuser stalling, or they wind up with too much drag.
Part of that is down to the driver, because downforce is always speed dependent, so if the driver can adjust their driving to be more in the sweet spot, they can get more out of the car. If the floor is flexing in uncontrolled ways it further complicates matters, and finding a compromise of floor strength, desired deformation properties, and platform control at speed all contribute to the aero performance. And we haven't even gotten to the tires yet.
The diffuser is changing shape slightly, the rear wing changes shape slightly, as well as the ride height changing all at different speeds. The exhaust is also interacting with this body work, along with the turbulence of the tires, which changes depending on the tire and wheel temperatures. So the airflow profile, and car wake, at low speeds can be completely different than at medium or high speeds.
As a wild tangent, consider how "downforce" works. It doesn't matter what orientation, or shape you have, it can be vertical horizontal, etc. All lift works the same way, the force vector is always towards the low pressure side. The craziest part about aerodynamics, to me, is that if you add more air mass to a low pressure zone like a vortex, it doesn't raise the pressure of the vortex, it does the opposite. It doesn't even matter if the air is turbulent or not, it just has to be fed at the right "place".
I think their car is okay but need to be sharpen a bit. Hope they can do that as soon as possible.
What do you mean sharpen?
It seems both Red Bull and Honda are struggling to find the gains necessary to have leading pace.
Which areas on the RB16 have potential for improvement? Especially the large scale five tenths or so per lap that Red Bull and Honda may wish to find?
Maybe, development potential of this series of Red Bull cars is becoming, sadly, maxed out? RBR does not seem to have found much laptime improvement from 2019 to 2020.
I think their car is okay but need to be sharpen a bit. Hope they can do that as soon as possible.
What do you mean sharpen?
It seems both Red Bull and Honda are struggling to find the gains necessary to have leading pace.
Which areas on the RB16 have potential for improvement? Especially the large scale five tenths or so per lap that Red Bull and Honda may wish to find?
Maybe, sadly, development potential of this series of Red Bull cars is becoming maxed out?
I mean they have to solve issues to mature design.
I don't know if you watched second race. Verstappen was slower than merc with softs but almost same pace with mediums. If they save tyres as long as merc does, it is for sure that max can easily finish 2d and just 5 sec behind ham. Or closer when we expect longer soft tyre stint.
Last year they brought new wing and suddenly they were much closer. They can do same. It is a possibility that they can not do it too. As a fun I expect positive possibility.
Last year they brought new wing and suddenly they were much closer. They can do same.
IIRC that was just trying to fix the problems caused by the 2019 front wing regulations, a small step towards more of an inboard loaded front wing.
Now, Red Bull are running even more of an AlphaTauri / Ferrari style front wing (as with nearly everyone else who started with an outboard loaded wing at the start of 2019), so I wonder how much potential is there to improve the front wing flow structures further.
I think their car is okay but need to be sharpen a bit. Hope they can do that as soon as possible.
What do you mean sharpen?
It seems both Red Bull and Honda are struggling to find the gains necessary to have leading pace.
Which areas on the RB16 have potential for improvement? Especially the large scale five tenths or so per lap that Red Bull and Honda may wish to find?
Maybe, sadly, development potential of this series of Red Bull cars is becoming maxed out?
I mean they have to solve issues to mature design. I don't know if you watched second race. Verstappen was slower than merc with softs but almost same pace with mediums.
If you're talking about Bottas, maybe. Hamilton, not at all. Hamilton didn't show his true pace after the pitstop, until he dropped a 1:06:719 on 40 lap old tyres.
The Red Bull package seemed to induce greater tyre wear than the Merc at this circuit. Verstappen had to pit first, as he was rapidly losing time to both Hamilton and Bottas.
Looking at the onboard footage during the wet qualifying sessions, I think power delivery may be partly responsible. Verstappen had significantly more instances of broken traction in the wet than Hamilton or Bottas.
It seems both Red Bull and Honda are struggling to find the gains necessary to have leading pace.
Which areas on the RB16 have potential for improvement? Especially the large scale five tenths or so per lap that Red Bull and Honda may wish to find?
Maybe, sadly, development potential of this series of Red Bull cars is becoming maxed out?
I mean they have to solve issues to mature design. I don't know if you watched second race. Verstappen was slower than merc with softs but almost same pace with mediums.
If you're talking about Bottas, maybe. Hamilton, not at all. Hamilton didn't show his true pace after the pitstop, until he dropped a 1:06:719 on 40 lap old tyres.
The Red Bull package seemed to induce greater tyre wear than the Merc at this circuit. Verstappen had to pit first, as he was rapidly losing time to both Hamilton and Bottas.
Looking at the onboard footage during the wet qualifying sessions, I think power delivery may be partly responsible. Verstappen had significantly more instances of broken traction in the wet than Hamilton or Bottas.
Ham was faster and can be faster. Vers tested it and everytime ham showed he also can be faster. Because of.that I am saying Mercedes is faster but not out of reach if rbr can develop.
Last part of race Verstappen's car was not in the right condition he can not even do fastest lap with soft tyres.
edited for clarity....radical to say the least
RBR does not seem to have found much laptime improvement from 2019 to 2020. 
