According to reports, Red Bull may modify their Formula One car to resemble a Mercedes “zeropod” design following the 2024 season’s opening races.As per Autosport, the current world champions are “positioned to further imitate past Mercedes F1 car designs by shifting towards a ‘zeropod’-style concept with its first major upgrade of 2024.” According to Autosport, Red Bull’s current RB20 design will only be used in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Australia—two countries with hot weather—for preseason testing as well as the race.At the Japanese Grand Prix in early April, Red Bull is expected to unveil an improvement that will imitate Mercedes’ contentious “zeropod” concept, as cooling is predicted to be less marginal.
At the Monaco Grand Prix last year, Mercedes finally gave up on their “zeropod” design in favor of a more traditional sidepod concept when their on-track performance fell short of what was being produced in the wind tunnel.
As the majority of the competition has already come to terms with a concept resembling the one seen on the previous two Red Bull cars, Red Bull caused a stir when they unveiled their RB20 with a design that was compared to Mercedes’ W14.
The vertical sidepod inlets and the bulge that extends the length of the engine cover are the features that most resemble the Mercedes from the previous year.
