The Milton Keynes-based squad has produced some eye-opening performances this year thanks to a huge advantage that drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez enjoy when the DRS is open.
The opposition have been looking closely to try to understand if there is a clever trick that Red Bull has deployed to deliver the speed boost.
Lewis Hamilton also recently prompted some intrigue about what Red Bull was up to, as he questioned why the team’s DRS advantage appeared to have gone at the high-downforce Hungaroring track.
But, as Autosport revealed, there is a growing acceptance that the key to Red Bull’s DRS advantage is the ratio of drag that it balances between its rear wing and beam wing.
Because the squad’s RB19 is so stable at the rear, the team can get away with running a much smaller beam wing – sometimes even just a single element – than its rivals dare to.
This means that its rear wing contributes a bigger share of its overall drag in a straightline, so when the DRS is activated it therefore sheds more air resistance.
At tracks where ultimate downforce is more important than aero efficiency (like Hungary), Red Bull follows other teams in going for a bigger beam wing because of the performance benefits in corners – which is why its DRS advantage is not as good at such tracks.
Rival teams have now started trying to develop their cars in the Red Bull direction, but accept that trimming back on the beam wings is complicated because of how much downforce they deliver to help stabilise the rear end of the cars.
Source: Autosport