Purple Bull says it has “pushed the boundaries” with the design of its new Components One automobile, the RB20, because it prepares to defend its place because the dominant pressure in Components One for a 3rd yr working.

The reigning champions revealed their new automobile on Thursday, six days forward of pre-season testing, though a lot of the main target on the launch occasion was diverted by an ongoing inner investigation into group principal Christian Horner.

Purple Bull design chief Adrian Newey insisted the brand new automobile is an evolution of final yr’s RB19, however quite a lot of visible design adjustments — together with a few options harking back to final yr’s Mercedes — counsel the group continues to be discovering important features in its wind tunnel.

“We will see rival vehicles have been influenced by RB19, and we’re anticipating different groups to converge,” Horner stated.

“I believe the group have performed a beautiful job on RB20, they have not sat on their laurels and you’ll see that they’ve pushed the boundaries with the automobile. We’ll solely see after we get on observe what the relative pecking order is for the beginning of the season.

“There’s some nice innovation on the automobile as effectively which can little doubt get scrutinized over the approaching weeks. Creativity has been robust within the group and you’ll see that in a number of the options that they’ve provide you with. It is not a conservative evolution, there’s some nice innovation on this automobile.”

In contrast to the RB19, the brand new RB20 options vertical sidepods inlets, related in form to these on final yr’s Mercedes W14. Nonetheless, the place Mercedes persevered with its now notorious ‘zero-pod’ design, Purple Bull has retained standard trying sidepods with deep undercuts.

The RB20 additionally includes a bulge working the size of the engine cowl underneath the automobile’s predominant Purple Bull motif, which was one other outstanding design characteristic of the cooling association on final yr’s Mercedes.

When it was put to reigning champion Max Verstappen that there have been some “Mercedes-style” concepts within the RB20’s design, the reigning champion stated: “I might nonetheless name it a Purple Bull fashion, however I do know what you imply.”

Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez added: “It simply exhibits the starvation that we now have. We’ve such a dominant automobile final yr that you simply would not count on us to vary the idea that a lot. I believe it’s actually courageous from Purple Bull to do.”

Requested concerning the RB20’s similarities with current Mercedes vehicles, group boss Horner added: “It is not tactical, it is based mostly on efficiency and what we’re seeing by means of our simulation instruments.

“Clearly the automobile seems to be fairly visibly completely different in sure areas to final yr. Solely the stopwatch will inform however within the digital world we would not have dedicated it to design if we did not really feel it was higher.”

Verstappen, who’s aiming for a fourth consecutive drivers’ title this yr, stated he first noticed the ultimate designs for the brand new automobile on the finish of final season.

“I am fairly proud of the path that they selected,” Verstappen stated. “I noticed the drawings I believe in Abu Dhabi, the final race, I used to be like, ‘wow, that is fairly completely different in a approach.’ And so they’ve not been conservative, as an instance like that.

“I believe what I like concerning the group is that we had an important package deal, however they took the prospect to actually go all out, I might say and attempt to make it higher. After all, time will inform if it is actually, actually good.

“However from what I see inside the group everyone seems to be simply proud of what they’ve achieved within the winter. However then once more, we do not know. We will not management what the opposite folks did.”

Horner suspects a repeat of final yr’s dominance, when Purple Bull gained all bar one race, won’t be potential once more this yr.

“I believe to set a goal of successful all of the races could be very tough. I imply, we achieved 21 out of twenty-two final yr and solely Singapore obtained away from us, so technically we are able to enhance, however logically there’s going to be convergence with secure laws.”