Red Bull’s technical director, Pierre Waché, has made it clear that the team is fully committed to creating a strong start to the 2025 Formula 1 season.
With the RB21 marking the final iteration of Red Bull’s ground-effect era cars before the regulation changes in 2026, the team has adopted a new philosophy in its pursuit of performance.
Instead of chasing outright peak performance, the focus has shifted towards creating a more adaptable and driver-friendly machine.
Greater flexibility in setup for Red Bull RB21
After a solid showing in pre-season testing in Bahrain, the RB21 faces its first true test at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. While Max Verstappen has expressed enjoyment in driving the new car, he has also acknowledged that further refinement is needed to unlock its full potential. He even suggested that a race win may be out of reach.
Waché, the Technical Director behind Red Bull’s latest challenger, explained that the team has deliberately moved away from an extreme, high-downforce setup. Instead, it is now in favour of a more stable and predictable car.
“It’s not as simple as that, because it’s a characteristic that the peak of downforce is not only on one dimension,” he told PlanetF1.com.
“It’s a multi-dimensional system that is not only downforce – it is also suspension-wise and what the kinematic is doing, but is an overall car characteristic of how the driver feels.
“But, fundamentally, it’s exactly that – reduce the overall potential in grip and capacity of the car to make it more flat.”
Learning from 2024
This decision was driven by Red Bull’s experience with last year’s RB20. Despite being an exceptionally quick car, the RB20 often pushed even Verstappen to his absolute limits. Waché acknowledged that a more balanced car would benefit both drivers. This includes Liam Lawson, who has been promoted to partner Verstappen after Sergio Perez’s struggles in 2024.
“The driver is part of the system. All the driver characteristics are similar. It’s just the bandwidth they have could be a little bit different, the way they use a car,” Waché elaborated.
“But, if you have a more flatter potential, it doesn’t matter about how the driver is, he’ll be able to deal with it.”
Recognising Verstappen’s extraordinary talent, Waché admitted that even he had been tested by last year’s car:
“We know, by definition, we have with Max that we have, if not the best driver on the grid, the control he has is very high. We know last year that we achieved his limits.”
Liam Lawson to benefit from a more adaptable car
With Lawson stepping in for Perez, the Kiwi driver is set to reap the benefits of Red Bull’s revised approach. Waché believes that by making the RB21 more predictable, it will help the second driver settle in more quickly.
“It will help the second driver – whether that be Liam or Checo [Perez] – if we make it flatter to drive and easier to drive,” he said.
“That’s the direction now. The main purpose now is to give more freedom on the setup, to adapt to the driver by having a flatter car, to make it more fitting for him than before.
“When we had a lot peakier car, your setup is more or less given by the car to be able to use this peak. I think the driver will feel it’s really easier for him to adapt the car to him by the setup than last year’s.”
A strategic balancing act between 2025 and 2026
Red Bull introduced early updates to the RB21 in the final stages of pre-season testing. They included modifications to the front wing and nose, originally planned for the Australian Grand Prix. The objective was to accelerate the evaluation process and confirm the team’s development path.
With the 2026 regulation overhaul on the horizon, Red Bull faces the challenge of balancing its 2025 development while allocating resources for the future. Under F1’s cost cap, every decision regarding upgrades must be carefully measured. The teams must also dedicate budget and wind tunnel time to designing their completely new 2026 cars.
Asked whether the opening races of 2025 would dictate how much focus remains on this year’s car, he dismissed the notion that a strong start alone would determine their development strategy.
“I don’t think it’s in this way,” he said.
“We try to make the strongest start to a season as possible every year. You can make some references after race three or four, and can have a big update based on capacity. This time, we try to make it all in for the first race, which is why some parts are arriving a little bit earlier for evaluation.”
“The way the championship will go could affect, for sure, the results we put on 2026. If we have a chance to win the championship, and I hope we have, we will put everything we can to win it. However, 2026 car development has already started.
“It’s just a balance. You have a package of resource which is limited, for everybody, the same – in terms of money and resource you have based on the money you spend on parts.”
On to 2026
By the latter half of the season, Red Bull’s focus will inevitably shift more towards 2026, as Waché explained.
“But I can tell you that, after [summer] shutdown this year, most of the development resource will go for 2026 because the time to bring parts to the track will take longer. Around September time, everything will shift to 2026.”
With Red Bull looking to replicate their successful strategy from 2021, Waché admitted the challenge of balancing both is no easy feat.
“The nightmare is you use your capacity up, because you have a limited capacity on wind tunnel and CFD, in terms of what you can do – you still use some capacity there to develop the current car. So it’s a possibility!”
As the 2025 season begins in Australia, Red Bull have gone all-in with the RB21. But the real test will be whether they can maintain their dominance while preparing for the next era of Formula 1.
Feature Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool
