Red Bull has the moral obligation, at least, to recover in F1. They had to regroup, drive away the demons of the 2024 season, and at the same time, restart strongly toward a different competitive campaign. This was somewhat the goal of the team, which, lacking Adrian Newey after over three decades, wanted to find new momentum to bolster the project in the highest category of motorsport. Failing would be a major disappointment, and for the Austrian team, it could be a hard blow to recover from. Now, let’s briefly touch on the tests regarding the team’s approach.
F1, Red Bull works on axle asynchrony
The Milton Keynes team dedicated several runs to visual checks using flow viz to examine areas of fluid detachment and observe the real flow line behavior. The goal was to test the correlation between CFD, the first step of design, the wind tunnel, which provides the second step of validation, and then the track, which provides the most important feedback. Photos of the flow lines highlighted with paraffin will be compared with the data obtained from the other two methods. Good correlation is achieved if the error between these data is sufficiently contained.
The car seems to have very stable downforce coming from the floor, with the RB21 managing to put down all the horsepower of the power unit when exiting medium- and high-speed corners. They are able to work the floor well during squat, meaning during the high-speed rearward load transfer. This indicates they manage the kinematics well during this phase, allowing them to gain significant advantages. They do this by limiting vertical displacement to stabilize the fluid structure in the floor. This was observed during on-track testing in Bahrain.
On the second day of testing, when temperatures were fairly mild, Max Verstappen confirmed what had been said, but without going into too much detail. The Dutch driver clarified that there had been a step forward in terms of car predictability. Last year’s problems seem to have been largely solved, so we shouldn’t see a car with a front axle disconnected from the rear, the main issue that caused poor response during track interventions. At the moment, the Red Bull RB21 is correctly responding to various setup changes.
F1, Red Bull pushes to update the RB21
On the final day of testing in Sakhir, we noticed some modifications to the Austrian car. This was anticipated by our editorial team when the team presented the car with renderings. Among these, the new nosecone tip, which is detached from the main wing element. An update designed to increase the mass flow into the front pillars. The increased section enhances the airflow working with the floor. The characteristic hole at the tip remains but changes shape, aimed at relieving pressure where the flow speed tends to zero, a stagnation point.
The update was introduced to speed up the learning process and verify if the chosen direction is correct. However, as we understood, the new feature did not make the expected difference. This is precisely why the former F1 world champion team is trying to bring forward other scheduled updates, so they can be ready for the first Grand Prix of the season. On the other hand, yesterday, the front end stopped working entirely, exposing another layer of issues they hadn’t encountered yet. There was a significant lack of rotation, so much so that Verstappen, on several occasions in turn 13, lost the apex by several meters.
The talent from Hasselt was quite nervous about this issue, although during the session, the technicians led by Pierre Wache, who accused Ferrari of irregularities, addressed the problem, partly mitigated by the track cooling. Horner said the difficulties faced were part of the work program. For this reason, he wasn’t overly concerned, although Max’s expressions were quite telling in that regard. It’s worth remembering that the setup of a car is an extremely powerful tool. Hundreds of parameters can be varied, and many different paths can be taken.
Red Bull also worked on ground clearance, both front and rear, and simultaneously on the stiffness of the RB21, starting as always with the adjustment of the rear anti-roll bars. During F1 tests with a new project in hand, the aim is to conduct as many tests as possible on the car to make it easier to define the tuning window. The car seems to have made a step forward, although, like Ferrari, they haven’t yet been able to find the perfect setup.
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