The Red Bull team presented its new car for the 2022 Formula 1 season through a live broadcast at its headquarters in Milton Keynes, however, all fans were disappointed when the Austrians unveiled a mock-up provided by the FIA and the FOM .
After a few days in which no conclusions could be drawn about the car’s design, the energy drink guys held a filming day in which some onlookers caught the RB18 rolling.
In the leaked photos, a pull-rod front suspension could be seen, while in the rear region it showed a push-rod configuration. But this was not what caught the most attention on the first day of testing in Barcelona, where the single-seaters could be seen more clearly.
Red Bull tried a solution that other teams such as Aston Martin, Ferrari or Alpine have opted for, which is to add small openings in the upper area of the pontoons to cool the power unit.
Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB18 with gills still covered in the pitlane
During the early hours of the morning, the team, with Max Verstappen at the wheel, surprised with a striking design of the lower region of the pontoons, although when the temperature of the asphalt rose, they gave way to the 25 gills near the cockpit.
One of those that could be a direct rival of those from Milton Keynes, Ferrari , chose to equip some openings in the belly of the curved area of the F1-75 engine cover, but Red Bull will have a width of six inches and different profiles oriented located quite close.
The drivers’ world champions have shown that they may be able to create alternative solutions to improve the performance of the Honda engine in the circuits where the heat affects the most.
The gills have also appeared in Mercedes, who put him in the W13 in the afternoon with Lewis Hamilton, and in Alpine they played the mistake by covering and opening the entries throughout the morning with Fernando Alonso.
Finally, Red Bull could not finish higher than ninth position, but they were the second with the most kilometers rolled with almost 700, only behind Ferrari, although the Italians were with Charles Leclerc in the morning session and with Carlos Sainz in the afternoon. .
