Tech Preview | Red Bull and Aston with upgrades to redeem themselves

After the first non-Red Bull victory of the 2024 season, teams will now have to face one of the most complete and indicative circuits of the whole season: the Suzuka Circuit. With a very fast flowing first sector and a combination of medium-speed corners, slow chicane and long straights in second and third sector, the Japanese track provides useful data about the real performance of an F1 car in all conditions possible. 

For this reason, top teams will be hoping for a good performance around here, as this means that they have a solid car to compete with Red Bull throughout the season. Red Bull and Aston Martin will bring the first upgrades of the year, while McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will try to keep up the pace. 

RB20 with two more cooling inlets and a new floor

Red Bull will bring a series of new parts this weekend in Suzuka, a couple of which have already been spotted on Thursday: two semi-circular cooling inlets on the side of the halo. These new components increase the number of openings intended for cooling to a total of 8, proof of how the technical team tried to make the car as efficient as possible, while placing the inlets in very peculiar positions to provide enough air for cooling the Power Unit, avoiding any reliability problem. 

It’s impossible to know if these changes have been done for reliability reasons or to increase efficiency, but for sure those two elements are strongly connected, as more air sucked means more engine power and thrust. 

This “hole” was followed by a change to the engine cover too, as it now has a bulge behind the new inlet to push the air towards the beam wing and the diffuser. Moreover, on the RB20 a flow diverter was also spotted halfway along the mirror support, to push the air towards the waterslide in the terminal section of the sidepod, increasing the mass of air to the rear end of the car. 

Together with these changes, the Milton Keynes team is rumoured to have brought also an upgrade to the floor, which probably concerns the section underneath the car, not visible normally.  

These new parts are expected to increase the amount of downforce generated by the bodywork and floor of the car, to have a higher the peak of downforce generated both in the high-speed corners and medium speed ones. Furthermore, the new cooling inlets will contribute in cooling the Power Unit. 

Red Bull will try to come back at their top form on a circuit which should favour the RB20, which has been very competitive in both fast and medium speed corners and has showed unmatchable pace in the race distance with the harder compounds. 

Aston Martin with "RB19" inspired sidepods

Red Bull won’t be the only team to bring a new package in Japan, as Aston Martin have also showed big changes in the sidepod and floor edge area on Thursday. During testing in Bahrain, the team used flow viz to analyse the airflow around the whole sidepod area. However, the flow around the “belly” showed some detached zones, as it separated from the wall of the sidepod itself, reducing the efficiency of this zone. 

To solve this problem, the team have brought a new design with a "cut" in the middle of the length (very similar to the one seen on the RB19), useful for pushing the air flow from the upper part of the sidepod towards the lower part and better sealing  off the floor. Consequently, the floor edge has also been revisited. It now presents a different design in the terminal area, where previously the "knife" was connected to the floor with an L-shaped cut (to better manage the tyre squirt effect and divert the flow towards the diffuser), while it now has a more regular shape and is connected with a metal support to the main element. 

With this new package, Aston Martin will hope to improve their overall performance. As Alonso pointed out during the press conference, the team believe that these new bits will push them a step forward: "This year, we are matching that kind of development. So I think they are all very good signs.” 

The British team, despite being very close to Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship, aim to get back at finishing on the podium as they did in the first half of last year and Suzuka is the perfect circuit to understand whether the path they took with the updates is the right one.

On the other hand, Ferrari and McLaren didn’t bring changes to their cars, as they strongly believe that they’ll be able to get closer to Red Bull in qualifying and maybe also in the race, even tough their hope is to fight on equal terms with Verstappen as their upgrades will be introduced later in the season.