As Max Verstappen fought his way to a fourth world title, Red Bull’s development trajectory stalled. The RB20 spent most of the year stagnant, both in terms of performance and drivability.
If Red Bull want to compete for this year’s Championship, they must overcome the difficulties that sparked complaints from Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
However, technical director Pierre Wache makes clear the RB21 will have very limited margin for error.
Red Bull prioritising “overall potential” over comfort
Verstappen, perhaps more than any F1 driver, is known for his extreme set-up preferences.
The Dutchman is comfortable with extreme levels of oversteer – something his teammates often struggle to keep up with.
His ability to cope with aggressive configurations, to some degree, meant that Verstappen obscured some of Red Bull’s emerging problems in 2023.
Despite dominating the field, Red Bull were generally oblivious to the emerging limitations with their package.
It was only in the 2024 campaign that Red Bull’s limited operating window and unfavourable characteristics became more obvious.
Even after making some progress on this front, weekends like the Qatar GP (where the RB20 changed drastically from Saturday to Sunday) serve as a reminder there is still work to do.
Amidst these concerns, technical director Pierre Wache says Red Bull will still be navigating a tightrope in 2025:
“The overall potential decreases if you increase the window,” he told motorsport.com.
“If you look at other teams’ cars and how they’re positioned, they’re all insanely stiff.
“What you want is to produce the fastest car. But it’s not the case that a car is slow because the window in which it operates is small.
“What you want is to be in the right window for each circuit, so that you can anticipate that.”
Embracing a bold approach
For the majority of last season, teams worked on establishing a baseline to deliver consistent performance.
Mercedes spent 2024 wrestling with a W15 car that was at the mercy of track temperatures and wind conditions.
Unlike previous years, Red Bull found themselves on a similar knife-edge with the RB20.
McLaren, and to a lesser degree Ferrari, were more successful in developing more predictable cars.
However, according to Wache, a small operating window is necessary to optimise potential:
“Why would you want to extend the window and flatten the overall potential of a car?”
“You want the fastest car compared to the others.
“I will not reduce the overall potential to make it easier operationally,” emphasised Red Bull’s technical director.
“You can reduce the potential to help drivers to use the car, but not to help engineers to use the car.”
Red Bull, like all of last year’s top 4 teams, enter the 2025 season with high expectations.
Delivering a strong machine to Max Verstappen – who searches for a fifth world title – is of the utmost importance.
Rumours about Verstappen exploring alternatives to Red Bull will only intensify if the Milton Keynes squad drop the ball.
At the same time, the Austrian team must ensure their search for absolute performance does not make the RB21 a nightmare to handle.
This is a very important point for Liam Lawson, who will need time to acclimatise at the team.
