They were the reigning world champions, with the reigning world champion driver. The same team that, in 2023, won every Grand Prix except one, dominating from start to finish. Yet, for much of last year, they struggled significantly and lost performance. Red Bull is now preparing to return to the top in 2025, and Christian Horner has spoken about the work carried out over the winter.
Nine. That’s the number of victories for four-time world champion Max Verstappen in 2024. After dominating the previous season, the British team suffered a steep decline. They started the year strong, reaffirming themselves as the team to beat, but after Barcelona, their winning streak ended until the sprint race in Austin in October.
To make matters worse, Red Bull was hit by a series of departures that disrupted the team’s structure. First, Adrian Newey left, then Jonathan Wheatley, and even before that, the controversy surrounding Christian Horner. All of this certainly did not help the team.
The goal for 2025 is to leave all that behind and return to the top, fighting against direct rivals McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Speaking to the media, Christian Horner detailed the team’s winter efforts and the key focus areas for improving the car.
“First of all, I’d say that the RB21 had a specific issue that Sergio Perez couldn’t work around, while Max Verstappen ‘masked’ it with his driving style. Regarding the 2024 project, we have a good understanding of things from a development perspective.”
“At Imola, we introduced an update that made the car much more sensitive in its performance, with a very narrow operating window. When we managed to keep it within that range, like in Austria, every lap was very fast. But if you moved even a millimeter outside that window, the car became much harder to handle.”
“So, what the engineers focused on over the winter was expanding that window—not necessarily adding performance, but widening it. This way, across the different tracks on the calendar, we would have a much broader operating window.” – the Red Bull team boss concluded.
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