{"id":30086,"date":"2025-02-07T06:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=30086"},"modified":"2025-02-07T06:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T11:09:09","slug":"f1-news-red-bull-2025-car-will-have-small-operating-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/07\/f1-news-red-bull-2025-car-will-have-small-operating-window\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Red Bull 2025 car will have small operating window"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Max Verstappen fought his way to a fourth world title, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/01\/f1-news-red-bull-play-catch-up-in-2025-development-race\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull&#8217;s development trajectory<\/a> stalled. The RB20 spent most of the year stagnant, both in terms of performance and drivability.<\/p>\n<p>If Red Bull want to compete for this year&#8217;s Championship,\u00a0 they must overcome the difficulties that sparked complaints from Verstappen and Sergio Perez.<\/p>\n<p>However, technical director Pierre Wache makes clear the RB21 will have very limited margin for error.<\/p>\n<h2>Red Bull prioritising &#8220;overall potential&#8221; over comfort<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/05\/verstappen-discusses-potential-le-mans-bid-with-alonso\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Verstappen<\/a>, perhaps more than any F1 driver, is known for his extreme set-up preferences.<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman is comfortable with extreme levels of oversteer &#8211; something his teammates often struggle to keep up with.<\/p>\n<p>His ability to cope with aggressive configurations, to some degree, meant that Verstappen obscured some of Red Bull&#8217;s emerging problems in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Despite dominating the field, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/16\/red-bull-admit-to-emergence-of-correlation-issues-in-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull were generally oblivious to the emerging limitations<\/a> with their package.<\/p>\n<p>It was only in the 2024 campaign that Red Bull&#8217;s limited operating window and unfavourable characteristics became more obvious.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Amidst these concerns, technical director Pierre Wache says Red Bull will still be navigating a tightrope in 2025:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The overall potential decreases if you increase the window,&#8221; <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/nl.motorsport.com\/f1\/news\/groter-set-up-window-nieuwe-auto-max-verstappen-liam-lawson-red-bull-legt-uit\/10693723\/#comments-block-anchor\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he told motorsport.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;If you look at other teams\u2019 cars and how they\u2019re positioned, they\u2019re all insanely stiff.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;What you want is to produce the fastest car. But it\u2019s not the case that a car is slow because the window in which it operates is small.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;What you want is to be in the right window for each circuit, so that you can anticipate that.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"VE1PIUO3RJdKs9Nzm9XXSA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2153393600\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'VE1PIUO3RJdKs9Nzm9XXSA',sig:'Ieb9wQuNFkNNqmsDIaHdpME1I8VHZr3E0TK5j22JCIE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2153393600',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Embracing a bold approach<\/h4>\n<p>For the majority of last season, teams worked on establishing a baseline to deliver consistent performance.<\/p>\n<p>Mercedes spent 2024 wrestling with a W15 car that was at the mercy of track temperatures and wind conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike previous years, Red Bull found themselves on a similar knife-edge with the RB20.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/02\/mclaren-join-ferrari-in-all-out-2025-development-approach\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">McLaren, and to a lesser degree Ferrari<\/a>, were more successful in developing more predictable cars.<\/p>\n<p>However, according to Wache, a small operating window is necessary to optimise potential:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Why would you want to extend the window and flatten the overall potential of a car?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;You want the fastest car compared to the others.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I will not reduce the overall potential to make it easier operationally,&#8221; <\/em>emphasised Red Bull&#8217;s technical director.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;You can reduce the potential to help drivers to use the car, but not to help engineers to use the car.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ToMWvspOQxFNOurRbiepTA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2032607063\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ToMWvspOQxFNOurRbiepTA',sig:'AzKso0OUUaKY5Y6iDEonfgO1oQxMB5GVnf9aq9P1bds=',w:'594px',h:'413px',items:'2032607063',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Red Bull, like all of last year&#8217;s top 4 teams, enter the 2025 season with high expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Delivering a strong machine to Max Verstappen &#8211; who searches for a fifth world title &#8211; is of the utmost importance.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours about Verstappen exploring alternatives to Red Bull will only intensify if the Milton Keynes squad drop the ball.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the Austrian team must ensure their search for absolute performance does not make the RB21 a nightmare to handle.<\/p>\n<p>This is a very important point for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/29\/liam-lawson-driving-style-wont-be-an-excuse-at-red-bull\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Liam Lawson<\/a>, who will need time to acclimatise at the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Max Verstappen fought his way to a fourth world title, Red Bull&#8217;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&#8217;s Championship,\u00a0 they must overcome the difficulties that sparked complaints from Verstappen and Sergio Perez. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":23330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[68,2452,2300,2455],"class_list":["post-30086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-pierre-wache","tag-rb21"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30086"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30089,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086\/revisions\/30089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}