“Is it too conservative?” Red Bull guru Adrian Newey questions new RB20 F1 car

Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey is unsure whether his team have been potentially “too conservative” with their RB20 F1 car for 2024.

Red Bull will be the final team to unveil their new challenger ahead of pre-season testing on February 15.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit dominated F1 2023, winning 21 of the 22 races.

Unexpectedly, the new RB20 is a “third evolution” of the car that saw Max Verstappen win his second drivers’ crown in 2022.

Speaking on the team's Talking Bulls podcast, Newey was wary about other teams being more radical with their car designs and finding an advantage.

“Our car, it's very much a third evolution of the 22 car,” Newey said. “Last year's car was an evolution of '22 in its main points being of course, the normal winter development in terms of aerodynamics, some understanding on what we needed to do with suspension to try to improve the car as well, and getting weight out of it, because we never got down to the weight limit in '22.

“This year's car is the third evolution of that original RB18. What we don't know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative, while others have done something different? You just don't know.”

Newey admitted that Red Bull’s 2023 dominance was a “complete surprise” given that the second year of new regulations tends to see teams converge.

"RB18, the first car, to the new regulations, I think we managed to get fundamentals right in terms of how we approached the research process, the architecture of the car, in terms of its layout, and so forth," he added.

"We managed to come out with a decent car that we then developed through '22. And obviously, we had a very strong second half of the season in '22.

"[In] '23, so now the second season of those new regulations, we completely expected the grid to close up. So last year, took all of us, me most of all, by complete surprise. We really didn't expect the domination that we had.

"This year, then, from what I understand, a lot of people, a lot of our rivals have kind of taken a good look this time, and I suspect there'll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car."