Red Bull led both qualifying sessions for the Miami GP, but Max Verstappen did not feel as overwhelming a superiority as on other occasions. Charles Leclerc was 141 thousandths behind the RB20 of the three-time world champion in qualifying, after having finished 3.3 seconds behind in 19 laps in the sprint race, and Fred Vasseur He did not hesitate to admit that in the Maranello team there was some expectation about the possibility of achieving pole position.
The Dutchman’s car seemed to be slightly more aerodynamically loaded than the SF-24 and certain decisions were made based on the life of the tires, in a race that could be done perfectly with a single stop, even knowing that the top speed on the speed meter is better: Max touched 342.7 km/h in qualifying, while Leclerc stopped at 339.7 km/h.
Red Bull Racing RB20 radiator design
To combat the heat of Florida’s capital (about thirty degrees in the air that becomes almost fifty on the asphalt!), the RB20 deliberately opted for a very open version that guarantees good heat evacuation at the cost of losing something in the aerodynamic efficiency of the complex cooling system, which has been divided into no less than four separate elements, each of which is fed by its own specific air intake and ventilation.
Red Bull RB20: this is how the gills on the sides of the bazooka change
Red Bull, in fact, has opened the side gills that ventilate the heat from the service radiators mounted inside the so-called bazooka. And at the moment there is nothing strange, except that there are also some striking openings in the wavy part of the engine hood that are not easy to see except from a rear view.
The two-slot option had already been seen during the start of the season, but at the Miami International Speedway the aerodynamicists preferred to also open an additional part of the concave area of the engine cover so as not to question the proverbial reliability of power unit Honda RBPT H002.
Ferrari, for its part, had four gills on each side of the bazooka of the SF-24 to take care of the second engine 066/12 that he used in the round of the American street circuit, which was the sixth of the 24 races that the 2024 calendar of the championship has.
