As a circuit, Las Vegas demands low downforce setups that maximise top speed, traction and efficiency but reduce drag. How this demand reflects in each team’s rear wing will be different as it works in conjunction with the rest of their aerodynamic components, but typically it would look like a reduction in angle.
This has been followed by most of the teams, including free practice front runners Mercedes and McLaren and Constructors’ championship hopefuls Ferrari who claimed Pole in Sin City last year. But unlike their competitors, Red Bull have gone down a different route leading many to wonder whether they’ve made a mistake, especially in their choice of rear wing.
Their wing is much draggier than those used by the other teams at the top half of the field and features cut out sections to help reduce this drag effect as much as possible. In fact, Red Bull mechanics were seen increasing the size of these cut outs with a dremel between sessions on Thursday night.
At first glance, this rear wing specification looks similar to that which the team used in Monza. This also featured the cut out sections, perhaps indicating that this is simply Red Bull’s way of achieving a lower drag, lower downforce wing without manufacturing one specifically for this purpose. In other words, perhaps they do not have a low downforce specification in their pool.
As with any part on a Formula 1 car, the rear wing doesn’t work in isolation but rather in collaboration and interaction with its other aerodynamic components such as the engine cover given its role in influencing how the air passes over the car rearwards.
Red Bull introduced a new engine cover design at the Hungarian Grand Prix earlier this year that is tapered at the rear and suited to a higher downforce track and car setup. While at the Italian and Azerbaijan Grands Prix they ran an alternative design with high haunches or shoulders suited to these lower downforce tracks. Given the Las Vegas circuit layout, it may have been expected that Red Bull would bring this high-shouldered, low downforce engine cover, but they’ve done the opposite and have run the Hungary specification so far this weekend.
This higher downforce setup choice not only over their rear wing but also their engine cover could indicate that the Milton Keynes squad have opted for this intentionally, knowing that it would risk their straight line speed but offer a potential benefit when it comes to traction and grip.
Assessing the telemetry from Hamilton and Verstappen’s fastest FP1 laps, each on the soft tyre, shows that Red Bull suffered for straight line speed particularly down the 1.9 kilometre long Strip straight where, at a point, Max was 11 km/h slower than Lewis. Though by the braking zone for turn 14 at the straight’s end this had closed down to be a 3 km/h difference, it’s a clear deficit for the RB20 particularly at speeds over 300km/h.
Equally though, this telemetry shows that Verstappen had the upper edge through the slow speed 90-degree corners of turns 5, 9, 12, and 14 – claiming back over 4 tenths on his delta to Hamilton’s lap through turn 14 alone. Over a single lap this benefit in the corners is not enough to make back the time lost due to the RB20’s drag down the straights, however come the race this higher downforce setup could come into its own in terms of tyre warmup and wear.
Tyres and their warm-up requirements will undoubtedly be key considerations for the teams and drivers this weekend in determining their final setups given the impact of the cool temperatures on tyre performance and grip, as has already been seen in practice. Red Bull’s closest competitors in the Constructors’ battle in Ferrari have historically struggled with bringing their tyres into the optimal working window, evidenced by their double warm-up laps before pushing in FP2 and Charles Leclerc’s post-session comments; “With the cold weather conditions, it was difficult to bring the tyres up to temperature, which we knew would be a challenge.”
Perhaps Red Bull feel opting for a tyre performance biased setup could give them the upper hand over Ferrari, allowing them to use a one-stop strategy while Ferrari could be forced by their tyre wear into a two-stop.
Even so, there are clear problems Red Bull will have to solve to extract the best from this critical weekend in both championships. Post-practice Verstappen felt they have a “tyre related” issue resulting in “no grip and it feels like driving on ice”, while Perez said they struggled for “balance in the low speed” after they carved out bigger sections of the rear wing.
