{"id":31155,"date":"2025-03-05T06:57:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T11:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=31155"},"modified":"2025-03-05T07:00:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:00:05","slug":"red-bull-rb21-did-not-respond-as-we-wanted-across-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/05\/red-bull-rb21-did-not-respond-as-we-wanted-across-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull: RB21 &#8220;did not respond as we wanted&#8221; across testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/14\/red-bull-will-not-abandon-2025-if-they-are-in-a-title-battle\/\" target=\"_self\">Max Verstappen and Red Bull<\/a> were eager to assess their winter progress in Bahrain Testing. The RB21 has been designed to compensate for Red Bull&#8217;s shortcomings last season.<\/p>\n<p>There were certainly some positives for the Milton Keynes squad, who believe the RB21 mitigates some of it&#8217;s predecessors weaknesses.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are concerns that Red Bull&#8217;s progress is insufficient. <strong>The team are unhappy with some aspects of their 2025 challenger<\/strong>, in terms of drivability.<\/p>\n<h4>Red Bull not fully satisfied with first indications of 2025<\/h4>\n<p>For several years now, Verstappen has started the year as the favourite to win the Championship. To some degree, the Dutchman&#8217;s four successive titles mean this is still the case in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Still, for the first time in almost half a decade, there are serious doubts if Red Bull will provide him the machinery he requires.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/24\/lando-norris-midfield-teams-could-trouble-the-top-four-in-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">McLaren<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/03\/hamilton-says-retirement-is-far-away-i-could-be-here-until-im-50\/\" target=\"_self\">Ferrari<\/a> finish last season ahead of Red Bull in the standings, but their development trajectories were fare more positive.<\/p>\n<p>This is especially true for McLaren, whose MCL39 looked ominous in pre-season testing. Both in low and high-fuel running, the Woking-based squad performed at a very high level.<\/p>\n<p>Aware of the threat posed by Andrea Stella&#8217;s team, Red Bull knew the importance of a successful winter.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, the Austrian outfit are a few steps behind the reigning constructors Champions:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the team expected,&#8221; <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/latest\/article\/verstappen-admits-red-bull-have-work-to-do-as-pre-season-testing-concludes.7wBAIm5eQDymUfEoJ4XR1s\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">explained Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;But it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"pXNJBTl-TGdwE-T3dwvBnQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2202271618\" 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:'pXNJBTl-TGdwE-T3dwvBnQ',sig:'ov5Gmc8K5p4vkJM2i8aAOWdeiO1NYFFQaE1fDK0NP2g=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2202271618',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>RB21 is not yet firing on all cylinders<\/h4>\n<p>Variable track conditions were certainly threw a spanner in the works during the Bahrain tests.<\/p>\n<p>At a circuit with typically predicably conditions, changes in track temperature, wind &#8211; and even spells of rain &#8211; <strong>made life difficult for teams in pre-season<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/31\/why-mclaren-enter-2025-with-crucial-advantages\/\" target=\"_self\">This did not seem to bother McLaren<\/a>, though, who ran a very targeted programme. Their running plan indicated supreme confidence in the MCL39 and it&#8217;s correlation with the data from the factory.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Red Bull&#8217;s tests &#8211; while productive &#8211; were slightly more troubled:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;But we tried to explore the potential of the car,&#8221; <\/em>Wache continued.<em> &#8220;And tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;And I think we more or less achieved that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I am not as happy as I could be, <strong>because the car did not respond how we wanted at times<\/strong>, but it is going in the right direction.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected, and it\u2019s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Because of the looming 2026 regulations, <strong>Red Bull&#8217;s resources will be very limited in terms of mid-season development<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If McLaren, Ferrari or <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/26\/kimi-antonelli-fastest-in-first-morning-session-of-bahrain-tests\/\" target=\"_self\">Mercedes<\/a> begin the year with a major advantage, recovery will be difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, team principal Christian Horner has indicated that the FIA&#8217;s new flexi-wing measures could undo some of their work for 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen and Red Bull were eager to assess their winter progress in Bahrain Testing. The RB21 has been designed to compensate for Red Bull&#8217;s shortcomings last season. There were certainly some positives for the Milton Keynes squad, who believe the RB21 mitigates some of it&#8217;s predecessors weaknesses. However, there are concerns that Red Bull&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":31156,"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":[2452,78],"class_list":["post-31155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-red-bull-racing"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31155","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=31155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31192,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31155\/revisions\/31192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}