Red Bull unveils familiar look for 2021's RB16B

©RedBull

Red Bull has revealed its 2021 contender, with the RB16B looking very similar to its most recent predecessors.

The squad had previously stated that 60 per cent of last year's car has been carried over to the new season.

The first images released by the team show that the livery retains the familiar look and feel of its parent energy drinks company, with the team sticking with its iconic matte livery.

Read also: Red Bull banking on 'lessons from 2020' to fight Mercedes - Horner

The team is hoping that the absence of major rules and regulations changes over the winter will allow it to maintain the momentum they achieved at the end of last season with Max Verstappen claiming victory in the final race at Abu Dhabi.

"It’s the first time we’re taking a chassis with us into the new season," team principal Christian Horner told Auto Motor Und Sport. "Because of the homologation regulations, there is also a high percentage of parts.

“That’s why it’s more honest to call the car RB16B. The next model for 2022 will be RB18, so there will never be an RB17.”

F1 technical expert Craig Scarborough said on social media that the car was very much a late season RB16 with legality changes, and that "the devil is in the details" with "subtle revisions to the bargeboards and sidepod shape."

This year Verstappen is due to partner Sergio Perez, who has joined the team from Racing Point to replace Alexander Albon, who remains with the team as test and reserve driver.

©RedBull

Albon's uneven performance was one of the factors blamed for the team not being able to mount a serious challenge to Mercedes in last year's constructors championship.

In contrast, Perez finished a career-best fourth in the 2020 driver standings and clinched his maiden F1 victory in Bahrain.

Red Bull is also hoping that it has addressed a correlation misalignment with its windtunnel programme.

"We've worked very hard to understand why we struggled for correlation at the beginning of last year," Horner told Motorsport.com. "We learned a lot during 2020, and of course the challenge now is to apply that in 2021."

Honda will still be providing power units for Red Bull and its sister AlphaTauri team. An agreement between F1 bosses on an engine freeze and the decision to acquire the firm’s technology means that Red Bull will also be able to use the same units next season.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.