Red Bull RB20

[Joel709]

Rear wing

I’m curious to see if they’ve done any blending of the upper side pod which this new intake, perhaps a chap between this intake and the lower side pod creating a channel?

[Luscion]

Looks like theres a new duct above the sidepods, right below the halo. no zeropods though

[lio007]

Also a new mirror turning vane.

[AR3-GP]

It's beginning...

The main sidepod inlet is smaller (even more letterbox than before). The lower lip of the inlet is raised. It's higher relative to the red underlining of "Bybit" and it's also further away from the s-duct inlet (thus, higher and forward).

[organic]

Is it definitely an inlet

[AR3-GP]

Is it definitely an inlet

Which one?

[Stu]

Red bull sidepods
The airflow entering from the side of the sidepod appears to bypass the cooling mechanism and exit directly from the rear.
In this photo, you can finally see the pass-through duct.

Brake reservoir located in side-pod!?

Not sure about the routing, if that is the case it could be used for battery/ECU cooling or as a thermal barrier between exhaust & cooling system - essentially still a through-flow device or maybe is are feed for the lower heat exchanger?

The lower heat exchanger outlet ducting looks to be a ‘mighty fine’ way to support the floor…

[organic]

Red bull sidepods
The airflow entering from the side of the sidepod appears to bypass the cooling mechanism and exit directly from the rear.
In this photo, you can finally see the pass-through duct.

I don't think this is correct

[AR3-GP]

Very clear now. Smaller letterbox inlet.

[organic]

Very clear now. Smaller letterbox inlet.

https://i.postimg.cc/44bkntS5/image.png

https://i.postimg.cc/pXWNjrNt/image.png

Yes the modification is also visible

[Vanja #66]

Unquestionably zeropods

On a serious note, I can't see any major benefit of taking away 5mm of sidepod inlet and redirecting it down the undercut... Extra inlet is jut a drag and loss generator. Internals aren't repackaged, so I'm hoping we see something more soon. Otherwise, it's an uncharacteristically underwhelming update from Red Bull.

[organic]

Unquestionably zeropods

On a serious note, I can't see any major benefit of taking away 5mm of sidepod inlet and redirecting it down the undercut... Extra inlet is jut a drag and loss generator. Internals aren't repackaged, so I'm hoping we see something more soon. Otherwise, it's an uncharacteristically underwhelming update from Red Bull.

Maybe helps clean up cockpit losses that spill over under yaw? and i would say it's more than 5mm of sidepod inlet

With rb19 they spent half the season increasing aspect ratio of inlet and redirecting more air to the undercut and ever since other teams have all worked to do the same.. so I'd say it's clearly a fruitful development path?

[Vanja #66]

Maybe helps clean up cockpit losses that spill over under yaw?

No doubt it's a feature of the inlet. But on straights it still generates extra drag

and i would say it's more than 5mm of sidepod inlet

With rb19 they spent half the season increasing aspect ratio of inlet and redirecting more air to the undercut and ever since other teams have all worked to do the same.. so I'd say it's clearly a fruitful development path?

It's one thing to raise the underbite bottom edge 50mm and later 30mm more. It's another thing to raise it 5-10mm when it's already the shorter/overbite edge. You'll note this short extension does not change the form of the inlet now, it merely extends up and closely along the flow path - this makes the extension even less significant than it would be if the bottom edge was still underbite form. No doubt RB is reaching saturation of this area, unless they do something more radical next

[Farnborough]

Red bull sidepods
The airflow entering from the side of the sidepod appears to bypass the cooling mechanism and exit directly from the rear.
In this photo, you can finally see the pass-through duct.

Brake reservoir located in side-pod!?

Not sure about the routing, if that is the case it could be used for battery/ECU cooling or as a thermal barrier between exhaust & cooling system - essentially still a through-flow device or maybe is are feed for the lower heat exchanger?

The lower heat exchanger outlet ducting looks to be a ‘mighty fine’ way to support the floor…

Looks like one, doesn't it.

A few posts back I put observation about brake setup on front bulkhead going to a single "pot" reservoir and with mastercylinder arrangement no longer visible through that bulkhead.

It's possible that the primary mastercylinder has gone from traditional two separate with mechanical balance adjustment to a single concentric type with parity split fixed at that location, to then facilitate bias adjust only through software via BBW installation in modulation of whole rear sector of brakes.
That would mean it would default (mandatory hydraulic actuation for rear) to that fixed ratio in the event of BBW failure situation. In reality a small risk, but manageable in reality.

The reservoir is obviously to keep hydraulic fluid level against brake pad wear dimension, logical that it could facilitate rear system from that location as front feed "toggle" line would just be command to BBW system, with no need to refill volume in that line.
All this would remove equipment from that front cross section, give more mass centralisation etc to this chassis iteration.

[AR3-GP]

I concur. All of this mass centralization and lowering has likely benefitted their low speed performance where mass distribution tends to play a bigger role. Reducing moments of inertia and lowering the CG sharpens the front end and reduces lateral and longitudinal load transfer.