If you cannot beat your rivals at their own game, then change the rules of the game. Red Bull Racing adopted this mindset at Silverstone, choosing an extreme aerodynamic setup focused on top speed to compensate for its lack of cornering performance. It was a bold and risky strategy, but one that ultimately paid off thanks to two crucial factors: the wind, which shifted in their favor during the final qualifying attempt, and Max Verstappen’s extraordinary skill in managing a difficult car. But how much was this risky setup actually worth?
In our earlier analysis of Friday’s free practice sessions, we highlighted how the nature of the Silverstone circuit has evolved in recent years. Once known as a high-downforce, high-speed track among the most demanding on the Formula 1 calendar, Silverstone has transformed due to the current generation of cars generating immense levels of vertical aerodynamic load. These modern cars stay glued to the tarmac, which allows teams to run with lower downforce wings than in previous eras.
This has become an established trend over the last few seasons—even before the return of ground effect cars in 2022—but this year, it likely reached its extreme. The car that secured pole position was fitted with a rear wing so minimal in downforce that it looked more suited for circuits like Spa-Francorchamps or even Monza.
A strategic risk with performance logic behind it
Red Bull Racing’s setup decision wasn’t arbitrary—it was a calculated move. Reviewing the 2025 season so far, it’s no secret that the RB21 has a limited number of clear strengths compared to its competitors. These include exceptional top speeds on the straights and solid performance through fast, sweeping corners. However, when one of those strengths—like cornering—fades, as it did in Austria, Red Bull is forced to look for alternative performance solutions, even if they involve extreme configurations.
This thinking led Red Bull to shift, quietly but decisively, toward a highly aggressive low-downforce setup as early as Friday afternoon. With the RB21 unable to gain time through the corners—also hindered by understeer that limited Max Verstappen’s ability to rotate the car—the only logical solution was to recover that time on the straights.
Importantly, Red Bull’s decision to fit such a low-downforce rear wing was not primarily related to balance, as the understeer persisted even during FP2. Instead, it was a strategic effort to optimise lap time. If you cannot beat the fastest teams in the corners, then you must find lap time elsewhere.
Red Bull engineers believed that despite the visible understeer and the RB21’s increased sensitivity to wind, if they could tweak the car’s balance just enough, they would have a real shot at improving performance. Interestingly, the car did not suffer from the same limitations over longer race runs, where it remained more stable.
In FP2, the team not only installed a very low-downforce rear wing but also lightened the load on the front wing to maintain aerodynamic balance. However, this attempt didn’t yield the desired results—the understeer remained throughout the second session.
The key to success was not less downforce—but smarter use of it
Ironically, the breakthrough came not from reducing downforce, but from partially increasing it. While the car retained its ultra-low downforce rear wing in FP3—the so-called “Monza spec”—the team reverted to a higher downforce front wing configuration that had been tried in FP1. That earlier setup had been shelved temporarily in the hope of curing understeer but ultimately proved more balanced.
The result was a hybrid setup—a mix of both previous configurations. Cooler track temperatures and some clever setup tweaks helped the team rediscover a precarious but workable front-end balance. This is particularly important at Silverstone, a circuit where front-end grip is vital. It’s also worth noting that on Friday, Red Bull drivers experienced more tyre degradation and graining on the front tyres than on the rear. This makes straight-line efficiency even more valuable—because the less work done in the corners, the easier it is to preserve the tyres.
Andrea Stella, Team Principal of McLaren, explained:
“We don’t think there’s a strong correlation between overall downforce level and tyre wear when it comes to how lap time is generated at Silverstone. If you’re fast on the straights, you can afford to push less in the corners. But if your time comes mostly from cornering, you have to push hard—and that increases tyre stress significantly.”
How Max Verstappen made the difference
On paper, Max Verstappen’s final lap in Q3 may have looked effortless, but it was anything but. The Dutch driver’s last attempt was significantly more complex than what basic telemetry would suggest. According to the data, Verstappen gained nearly half a second during the straights and flat-out sections of the track. This is visible in the speed traps as well: +5 km/h compared to his closest rivals just before Turn 1 and again before Copse.
“It wasn’t easy at all, especially because of the wind,” explained Max Verstappen. “The car was moving a lot on the straights, sometimes unpredictably, but luckily on the final lap things came together. I had to push really hard in the high-speed sections due to the low-downforce setup, but in the end, it worked.”
It’s no coincidence that Verstappen pointed to the fast corners in Sector 2 as the most difficult part of Q3. With such a minimally loaded rear wing, the car becomes far more sensitive to gusts of wind. Still, a large part of the success can be attributed to Verstappen’s right foot. The Dutchman has repeatedly proven his ability to manage extreme setups—especially those with very low rear-end downforce.
McLaren’s Andrea Stella added:
“The more wing you have, the less you’re affected by the wind, because the car is more stable. But in this case, the wind direction actually favored a low-downforce wing, especially in the high-speed sectors. It meant teams could afford to run less wing than usual without losing too much time between Turn 7 and Turn 15.”
In Verstappen’s final attempt, the wind shifted direction, blowing in the opposite way right at the most crucial part of the lap—between the Maggotts-Becketts complex and Stowe, the same Turn 15 mentioned by Stella. With a headwind, the car gains more aerodynamic load, giving Verstappen the front-end grip he needed to attack the corners without being limited by the reduced rear downforce.
Interestingly, many drivers recorded lower top speeds in their second qualifying runs compared to their first—especially from Chapel to Stowe. But for Verstappen, this paradox worked in his favor: he benefited from the added grip in the corners while losing less on the straights due to Red Bull’s highly efficient low-downforce setup.
“That kind of setup can only work if the car is extremely efficient in terms of its drag-to-downforce ratio—and Red Bull clearly nailed it,” one engineer noted. There was a narrow window where everything needed to align perfectly, and once again, Max Verstappen managed to hit it with precision, delivering yet another brilliant qualifying performance for Red Bull Racing.
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