Mercedes believe Red Bull’s rivals will get “inspiration” from floor photos taken in Monaco.
Sergio Perez’s crash in qualifying offered a rare chance to see underneath the all-conquering RB19 last weekend, revealing the intricate design of the Venturi tunnels created by Adrian Newey.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the grid was very keen to get hold of the photos taken with Mercedes technical director James Allison admitting to getting a “nice clutch” of images to “pore over”.
But his colleague Andrew Shovlin played down the possibility of teams trying to replicate Red Bull’s design.
“All teams will be looking at the photos and I suspect they will be looking a bit more at the Red Bull ones than the Mercedes or the Ferrari ones,” he told Sky Sports, noting how the floors of the W14 and SF-23 were also revealed in Monaco.
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“You can certainly get ideas about what they are trying to do with flow structures and where they might be going with the development direction. If you look at last year, you look at this year, you can understand a little bit about what they are doing there.
“But the reality is, while those pictures give you a bit of an idea, it’s not as simple as ‘let’s copy that, put it on our car and we’ll be as quick as they are’. It’s definitely not a case of that.
“The reality is you’ve got to spend a vast amount of your effort understanding your own car and developing from there. So I think a little bit of inspiration, but not much more than that.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella also admitted to taking a look at the RB19 and acknowledged the work Red Bull had done.
“Personally, I spent some time [analysing the pictures], but the 100 aerodynamicists at McLaren will be spending a little bit more time,” he said.
“It’s very interesting indeed and also shows the complexity and the quality of the developments.
“To be honest, when I saw it I said ‘hats off to Red Bull’. I can understand why they have this kind of performance.”
As for Red Bull themselves, team boss Christian Horner brushed off the reveal off with a joke.
“It’s very rude to look up people’s skirts,” Horner smiled.
“It has been a bit of a show and tell from all the teams, everybody has been up in the air at some point. It’s the same for everyone.
“I think pictures get taken in and around the paddock, they arrive in vans and work on the cars with shutters up,” he added.
“Each team will be employing spy photographers to get pictures of the cars when they’re in parts and pieces.
“That’s common practice, so I wouldn’t have thought it is the first time to get a picture of the floor…
“It is probably the first time it has been suspended from a crane, but I think all teams are always striving for that intelligence.”
