Tech insight - Red Bull aero evolution

Red Bull may still be down on power relative to their Mercedes and Ferrari opposition, but developments in other areas of the car are helping them to stay on the podium - three times in the past three races, in fact, including last weekend in Canada…

Winging it

Both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen ran with this innovative front wing for the Montreal race. It featured a design solution never before seen on a Formula 1 car – the unusual vertical slot (red arrow) near the leading edge of the endplate – as Red Bull looked to find that elusive balance of downforce and drag around the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

All in vane

The team tried other aero developments on Ricciardo’s RB13 - this one was trialled in practice but not used in the race: a simple, tall vertical turning vane, connected to the sidepod by a separate horizontal attachment. It temporarily replaced the usual inverted L-shape vane (see photo below) which attaches directly to the sidepod. In the drawing above you can also see the three small vanes on top of the sidepod, which appeared on Ricciardo’s car on the Friday in Canada, very similar to those seen on the McLaren since the beginning of the season.