What will the RB21 be like?
After dominating with ease in 2022 and 2023, and partially in the first part of this season, 2024 has quickly turned into a particularly tough puzzle for Red Bull, which now finds itself not only with a double title at risk but also needing to finalize the 2025 Formula One project, which doesn’t provide the same guarantees to the Milton Keynes team as in previous years.
All of this under the budget cap, making it much harder for teams to drastically overhaul their car projects in just a few months. Since the start of the 2024 Formula 1 season, the RB20 has revealed several issues compared to its predecessor, including instability in low-speed corners, along with noticeable problems when passing over curbs and bumps.
Additionally, balance issues and the discrepancy between wind tunnel data and on-track performance have worsened the characteristics of a car that, with the significant performance improvements from Ferrari, Mercedes, and especially McLaren, has fallen down the ranks since Austria.
However, despite the issues, Red Bull has no plans for a revolution with the RB21. In fact, the updates set to be introduced in Austin, particularly in the floor area, will not only aim to restore performance to the RB20 but also to prevent the same flaws from reoccurring next year.
“In this field, you always have to be agile and put one foot in front of the other,” Christian Horner said in a recent interview for the Motorsport website – “You can’t project too far into the future. The long term in Formula 1 is about two and a half months, and fundamentally, what we learn this year is relevant for next year. So the 2025 car will be an evolution of this year’s. There are many components of last year’s car that have been reused this year because with the way the budget cap works, unless there’s a significant performance improvement, it doesn’t make sense to change.”
The RB21, barring further delays, is expected to be the last car designed in the old wind tunnel, which is now outdated compared to the competition, while the new one should be operational from 2026.
“We’ve always known the limits of the wind tunnel,” the Brit added. “But I think, as we’ve started to push the aerodynamics of these cars and we’re facing very narrow margins, those limits are becoming apparent.”
“There was a time when wind tunnels could have been banned. There was talk of whether this would be the case and whether CFD would surpass them. Adrian Newey held off on pushing for a new tunnel until there was clarity on this point. But it reached a point where Aston Martin wanted a new tunnel, and the FIA changed its stance. So it became a matter of saying, ‘We have to do it, and we have to do it now, because under the cost cap regulations, the tunnel we’re using is grossly inefficient.'” – the Red Bull team principal pointed out.
“We have a structure that’s a 60-year-old wind tunnel. It’s a relic of the Cold War. It’s been good enough to produce some fantastic cars for us over the years, but it has its limits. If the temperature drops below five degrees, we can’t run it. If it exceeds 25 degrees, it becomes quite unstable,” Christian Horner concluded.
Leave a Reply