Adrian Newey wanted to keep one of the great secrets of the Red Bull RB18 hidden for as long as possible, and that is something that has caused a lot of criticism of the team, since they presented a mock-up provided by the FIA with only the 2022 livery.
The genius from Stratford-upon-Avon has great persuasive power within the team that won the drivers’ title with Max Verstappen, and that has put rival teams on alert.
As a whole, the RB18 has some interesting solutions, but often those Adrian Newey ‘revolutions’ can take some time to find results, so it’s no surprise that the energy drink ones haven’t particularly shone in recent years. Barcelona test, despite having collected a lot of valuable information for the development of a car very different from the rest.
The first time we saw the car on the track was at the Catalan track, although they had been a few days before doing a filming day at Silverstone , and all the attention was focused on the strange aerodynamic aspect of the floor and the pontoons, with a huge ‘tray’ and the side hollowed out like in no other set.
However, it would be a serious mistake to stop at just this element, because Newey is a unique designer, who has a complete vision of a Formula 1 car where every screw counts.
The first description of his cars can never be exhaustive because the British engineer combines aerodynamic options with mechanical solutions in a mixture of innovations that must be discovered and analyzed little by little.
Newey’s skill lies in his ability to reintroduce known concepts that are very familiar to him with new developments. The most striking example is the front suspension, which has been converted to a pull-rod scheme, abandoning the philosophy of recent years.
Since the FIA has mandated much lower noses for safety reasons (to avoid being too high in side impact with another car penetrating the chassis), Red Bull has decided to shift the weights of the internal suspension kinematics towards the ground, allowing the center of gravity to be lowered considerably.
However, with this genius of aerodynamics the first solution is never to be taken for granted, and the innovative aspect is in the upper triangle which has been split into two multi-link arms. The hub carrier mountings are offset, but so are the arms, since the front one is anchored at the highest point of the frame, while the rear one is fixed to the bodywork, much lower.
An anti-slip effect, but each element of the suspension, in the absence of the turning paddles and bargeboards, prohibited by the FIA, becomes an effective flow separator with aerodynamic functions.
The surprise of the RB18 is that Newey has managed to reproduce development concepts over time, given that its working philosophy is that nothing is thrown away in Formula 1, and each solution can find a new application as the rules change. .
Red Bull RB18 single arm front suspension detail
Not surprisingly, Adrian inverted the front suspension, going from a push-rod to a pull-rod design, and also moved the single arm that directly connects the two wheels up, obviously going through the chassis.
Red Bull RB16 front suspension – the only arm going through the bodywork was at the bottom
Giorgio Piola ‘s image clearly shows us how the single arm that was part of the lower triangle of the RB16 and RB16B has been moved to the top of the front suspension, reproducing an idea that has already proven to work well with body mountings. .
A similar solution had previously been adopted by Ferrari in the F2002, which was later developed into the F2004, Maranello’s most successful car of the Michael Schumacher era.
Ferrari F2002 single arm front suspension detail
Newey has also decided to fix the front height adjustment system in the middle of the pull-rod suspension, something that, with this arrangement, means that the bar is subjected to forces that are only a fraction of those that a scheme has to withstand. push rod. For this reason, the adjustable part has been placed in the middle of the pull-rod configuration, in a position where the mechanics can intervene more easily, whereas before it was close to the lever fixing (with a much larger diameter) to the bodywork.
Red Bull RB18: the height adjustment set in the center of the pull-rod suspension (in yellow)
We can’t get our hopes up with just these items, as the RB18 still retains other features that haven’t been found, so we continue to hunt for them.
