Red Bull admit studying Mercedes zeropod concept

Red Bull Racing continues to dominate in the 2023 Formula 1 season, as Dutch racing driver Max Verstappen outperforms everyone, thus both the team and driver already hold healthy leads over rivals after just 7 of 22 races.

It is also thanks to Red Bull’s amazing car, the RB19. It is indeed an incredible engineering achievement. Last year, it was evident that Red Bull had the fastest car on the track in the RB18, and this season, the RB19 is proving to be even better.

Many other teams remodelled their vehicles after the last season, focusing mainly on Red Bull’s ‘Sidepod’ concept. However, Red Bull Racing’s chief technology officer, Adrian Newey, has stated that they took a look at Mercedes ‘Zeropod’ concept in order to understand the Brackley-based team’s ambitions.

What is the ‘Zeropod’?

Following the implementation of Formula 1’s new Technical Regulations for F1 2022, which mandated a shift to ground-effect aerodynamics, Mercedes took a radically different strategy than their main rivals at the time, Red Bull and Ferrari.

With the W13 in 2022 and the W14 for F1 in 2023, Mercedes debuted a design that would become known as the “zero-pod” concept, in which the side pods were reduced to very small inlets.

In 2022, Mercedes only managed a single pole position and victory, and the W14 failed to propel the team in F1 in 2023. The zero-pod concept has been widely cited as a possible fatal flaw in Mercedes’ designs, a claim that the team, as well as drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, have consistently refuted.

The car was due for an upgrade, and Mercedes promised that they would make changes that would be “visible.” The long-awaited upgrade finally made its way through in the summer, just before the Spanish GP, and had an immediate impact on the performance.

Red Bull looked at both Mercedes and Ferrari concepts for the new rules

Both Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, secured a pole finish in the race; however, they were unable to beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. With Mercedes drivers failing to beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, no one could tell that the race was dull; rather, it was good enough to entice fans.

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Mercedes wowed everyone with a radical new idea at the second winter test in Bahrain in 2022, but the car ultimately fell short. Ferrari also had an impressive showcase; however, Adrian Newey claims that Red Bull never even considered Ferrari’s unique strategy.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Red Bull chief Christian Horner said: “Should we look more at what Ferrari did with their shape? In the end, we had a very quick look at the Mercedes to see what they were trying to achieve. We didn’t look at Ferrari and mainly concentrated on developing our own car, and luckily we seem to have had a decent solution.”