F1 Red Bull keeps pushing: new front wing aims to reduce understeer and boost performance
Red Bull has not stopped development of the RB21 and brought another incremental upgrade to its front wing for the Singapore Grand Prix, modifying the upper flap and its supports. The goal is to generate more downforce and, above all, improve balance on high-downforce tracks, where the car has historically suffered from chronic understeer.
According to the usual FIA technical update document, only two teams reported upgrades for the Singapore GP: Red Bull and Mercedes, both making adjustments to their front wings. Focusing additional resources on this area is unsurprising, considering that both teams have been among the most active in development throughout the year.
However, in Red Bull’s case, an even more significant aspect emerges: the Milton Keynes team continues to refine the car not only to achieve incremental improvements for better balance but also to keep their world championship ambitions alive, leaving no detail unattended.
The new front wing introduced in Singapore builds on concepts previously tested at other races, targeting the chronic understeer that has often limited the RB21. In some GPs, this issue can be partially mitigated by reducing rear wing load, but on high-downforce circuits, the room for adjustment is inevitably limited.
When rear downforce is increased to maximize rear-end support, the front suffers, causing handling and grip issues. That is why, on every high-downforce track, Red Bull has continued to refine its front wing, introducing incremental adjustments aimed at improving front-end downforce and achieving a more effective balance.
Examining the specification introduced at Marina Bay, it is immediately clear that it references solutions already deployed at other high-downforce events, particularly in the Netherlands and Hungary, where the upper flap was redesigned to generate more downforce and support the car through long corners typical of Budapest and Zandvoort. The new configuration also incorporates modifications to the outer section of the mainplane, previously tested, as well as the additional mini-flap on the sides of the nose first introduced in the Netherlands.
To take another step in downforce, Red Bull once again adjusted the central upper flap, altering its geometry, camber, and center of pressure. An interesting detail is the repositioning of the supports connecting the flaps, designed to prevent excessive flex and generate vortices—demonstrating how deeply this revision affects airflow over the wing.
This does not mean understeer has been completely eliminated but represents another incremental step. Early indications are positive. Over recent races, Red Bull appears to have gained an advantage in slow corners, and here at Marina Bay, Max Verstappen highlighted that the car feels more precise through turns. Due to limited spare parts, Verstappen will use the new wing, while Yuki Tsunoda will continue with the previous specification.
As explained by Monaghan, this is a small modification developed based on feedback from Zandvoort. “We hope to gain a bit more lap time. It’s a subtle revision. But after the last race at Zandvoort, new ideas emerged about what we could do. There was some margin available, so we decided to press the button and bring this new wing,” he said.
Although most attention is now on 2026, part of the team continues to work on the RB21 to extract the last remnants of performance, and the production department is not yet fully absorbed by next year’s car. As Sauber also noted, marginal modifications, once validated in CFD, can go straight into production.
However, this is expected to be the last major upgrade for the remainder of the season, aside from minor adjustments, such as at Las Vegas. “It should be the last real upgrade for this year. There may be only small adaptations for Las Vegas, as usual. But for the rest, yes, it’s a bit more performance, the result of significant factory work, and we have it here. The production department is not yet fully focused on the 2026 project, so there was an opportunity to do it, and we took it,” Monaghan concluded.
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