The RB21 will make its track debut on Tuesday 25 February in Bahrain. Red Bull will use their first of two filming days (200 km) allowed by the regulations. Max Verstappen will then officially make his debut the following day, when pre-season testing begins.
As anticipated by De Telegraaf, Lawson will also drive on the first day of testing next Wednesday: Verstappen will drive on Thursday, Lawson will close the tests on Friday.
Horner names McLaren and Lando Norris favourites in Australia
There is a lot of anticipation to understand if Red Bull have solved last year’s problems. Last season’s problems were so pronounced that Red Bull cancelled most of their upgrades and abandoned their development path.
Ironically, Max Verstappen’s driving style somewhat hid the RB20’s emerging problems. Then again, the Dutch driver repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction – even if engineers could not find effective solutions.
The technical office has worked to deliver more balance to the RB20’s front end. This is something Verstappen demands from his cars, but it is only one piece of the puzzle red bull must solve.
Sergio Perez paid the price for the failure at Red Bull to address last year’s shortcomings. For large parts of last season, it was Max Verstappen who outperformed the limits of the car.
The major problems that emerged on the RB20 made it effectively impossible for Red Bull to develop flexi-wings last year. This is despite other top teams working heavily on developing this area.
Red Bull’s priority was to fully understand and resolve the car’s problems, including the correlation issues that were so catastrophic to last year’s development.
However, Horner says the team have progressed well, the favourites in Australia will be McLaren and Lando Norris.
“Sometimes it’s good not to be the favourite and not have the pressure on you. I think it’s nice that Lando is going into the first race as a favourite.”
“However, Melbourne is quite a unique circuit,” Horner explained.
“We will have to do more races to have a more complete picture, also considering that in Japan there will be a new asphalt. It will be a very long season.”
Horner is the first to complain about the FIA Technical Directive
The RB21 will initially have a front wing that is more aggressive in terms of aeroelasticity. After all, the FIA said at the end of 2024 there would be no changes to tests in this area.
Christian Horner’s technical team invested a lot of time and money on improving the flexibility of RB21’s front wing. Because of this, news of the FIA’s new directive was a blow for Red Bull.
As previously revealed on AutoRacer, the FIA has decided to tighten the tests on the front wings from the Spanish GP (race 9). They will further review the front wings during static tests, both on the internal part (from 3 mm to 2 mm) and on the external part (from 15 mm to 10 mm).
AutoRacer anticipated that Red Bull was the angriest team about this directive. We also reported that McLaren was not worried, but rather in favour of the introduction of the technical directive.
Some English reports tried to contradict our suggestions, even speaking of conspiracies written by AutoRacer. Doubts were cast regarding our claims Red Bull‘s anger and McLaren’s endorsement of the new directive.
However, Red Bull’s thoughts have now officially surfaced – with Christian Horner revealing his reaction.
“It’s positive that the FIA has addressed the issue even if it’s undeniable that there has been a change of heart.”
“More than anything I don’t understand why there should be a change at the ninth race, because this essentially means that we will have two championships -up until the ninth race and after the ninth race.
“And this will only increase costs considerably.”
The annoyance of Red Bull is clear based on Horner’s words. It must be remembered that Red Bull were already unhappy with the FIA’s reaction to flex-wings last year.
Red Bull’s significant investment into their flexi-wings will be useful for less than a third of the world championship. It is already necessary to spend time and money on a new front wing design – which is especially costly during the budget cap era.
