Mercedes tech chief hoping for Red Bull 'invite'

Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has conceded he would "deeply love" an invite by Red Bull to delve into the new RB20.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit has made changes to its design philosophy despite dominating F1 by winning all but one race and one sprint last season.

The biggest changes seem to have been made to the cooling on the car, with radical sidepod inlets and a Mercedes-style engine cover bodywork configuration - though the Silver Arrows have now moved away from that design path.

"I would deeply love to be invited into the Red Bull garage to take their engine cover off and delve around under those snorkel-y things," Allison told Sky Sports F1.

"There is definitely a different approach taken there because what glimpses you see of the cooling system, it is definitely not light, so they are doing that for a reason. I would love to know what that reason is but we haven't figured it out yet."

Front wing explained

Mercedes has brought innovation of its own to the W15, not least with an intriguing front wing layout that sees a reduced span for the top flap element.

Explaining why the team chose to use this, Allison said: "We just didn't want a lot of chord at that point.

"If you have a look at all the wings, their chord varies across the span of the wing according to what the team thinks is going to work for them.

"I guess with our little inboard flap... we have to satisfy the rule so we have to have some flap there, but we don't want an enormous one. So we made a small one."