Wow that RB20 looks totally different from the competition regarding the sidepods/air inlets. (all the other cars are mainly RB19 copies)
There are now basically 3 inlets: the vertical slotted ones (also seen at the reveal), theres a horizontal inlet slot at the front under the sidepod (difficult to see, but they're there), and there are inlets on the front/inside of those bazooka ducts.
Anyone knows which ones lead to cooling radiators? Normally thats the front inlet on the sidepod (because that's usually the only inlet of real size), but with this car...I have no idea.
If it's the vertical ones, it might just be that the sidepods are pretty much empty and that the shape of the sidepod and the airflow inside mainly have an aerodynamic function, and a zeropod design can be really easily made (so the packeaging of the engine/gearbox/cooling is already fit for that.
Of course if the cooling is more to the center of the car instead of inside the sidepods, that increases agility as less mass is off axis.
This is going to be an interesting year regarding car development at RB I think.
It would be very interesting to see if they would come with a zeropod update and make it work....
Even with having lost quite a few top engineers to the competition it looks like RB is aerodynamically still leaps ahead on the competition.
Last year in monaco we saw the underside of the RB and the Williams, and the aerodynamic difference that came to mind with me was:
And I'm getting that vibe again regarding the sidepod/air intakes with most of the field
