The lingering concern Red Bull can’t shake heading into F1 2025

Red Bull are still skeptical about experiencing a repeat of their F1 development issues during the 2025 season.

After largely dominating the first two years of F1’s new regulations and winning back-to-back double world championships in 2022 and 2023, 2024 proved to be a much sterner test for Red Bull.

While Max Verstappen prevailed to his fourth consecutive drivers’ world title, Red Bull slipped to third in the constructors’ championship after being plagued by balance and development woes which hampered the RB20’s performance.

Those problems led to a 10-race winless slump mid-way through last term, though Verstappen was able to get back to winning ways in Brazil and Qatar as he resisted a late-season charge from McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Red Bull’s struggles led team principal Christian Horner to admit his side were unable to “trust” their tools after encountering data and correlation problems.

While Red Bull are confident they have improved their correlation, the team is refusing to rule out running into further development issues this year.

“In Formula 1you are always at the mercy of having another problem,” Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache told Autosport.

“It is reality and it's the reason why we are here, to try and anticipate the problems that we will have. It's dangerous to trust the system blindly.

“I don’t say that we don’t have to, but you have to make sure that you put everything into perspective and that you don’t reproduce on track exactly what you test.”

Wache added: "A team can only be good when you have doubts and when you are never sure of yourself.

“If you are sure of yourself, you know that you are a failure. To be very honest with you: what we faced during the past year, as an engineer I find that very positive.

"When you are winning, you never look into problems or details at the same level compared to when you are having problems on track.

“When you are not the quickest any more, then you look and you learn. And the more you learn, the more of an investment that is for the future.”

Newey saw Red Bull’s car problems coming

After leaving Red Bull to join Aston Martin, F1 design legend Adrian Newey has revealed he was already concerned about the development path of the team’s car before he departed.

“Obviously part of it was McLaren in particular and Ferrari as well developing their cars and doing a very good job of their cars,” he told German publication Auto Motor und Sport.

“But I think Red Bull, from what I could see, the ’24 car and through the very last stages of ’23 as well was, I would say, starting to become more difficult to drive.

“Of course Max could handle that. It didn’t suit him, but he could handle it, Checo couldn’t. So we also started, through ’23, to see more of a difference in performance between the team mates, Max and Checo.

“That carried into the first part of ’24, but the car was still quick enough to be able to cope with it. It’s something I was starting to become concerned about, but not many other people in the organisation seemed to be very concerned about it.”