Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache has revealed it will continue to prioritise outright potential over a wider operating window with the team’s 2025 Formula 1 car.
The Austrian squad sustained more success in 2024 as Max Verstappen again won the Drivers’ title, but a mid-season slump saw it relinquish the Constructors’ Championship.
Red Bull’s eventual loss to McLaren derived from balance troubles with the RB20 which worsened when updates didn’t deliver the anticipated gains due to correlation issues.
That culminated in a 10-race winless run that even had Verstappen concerned his sizeable lead could be overturned as he branded Red Bull’s 2024 car a “monster”.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner admitted the team’s attention over the winter would be on ensuring the RB21’s performance is more accessible than its recalcitrant predecessor.
“The engineers have been very focused on how you broaden that window,” he said.
“Not necessarily adding ultimate performance, but just broadening the window so we’re across the different challenges and have a much wider operating window.”
Red Bull still focused on ultimate potential
But Wache, who is overseeing the work on the RB21, has insisted that Red Bull will not sacrifice ultimate competitiveness in order to widen the car’s overall operating window.
“As a dream, of course, you want that, but you [also] know that the overall potential decreases if you increase the window,” he told Motorsport.com’s Dutch publication.
“If you look at other teams’ cars and how they lie, they are all insanely stiff.
“What you want is to produce the fastest car, but it’s not that a car is slow because the window in which it operates is small.
“What you want is to be in the right window for each circuit, so that you can anticipate that.
“If you can achieve that, why would you want to increase the window and flatten the overall potential of a car?
“You want the fastest car compared to the others. I won’t lower the overall potential to make it easier operationally.
“You can lower the potential to help drivers so they can use the car, but not to help engineers use the car.”
Red Bull pursued incorrect avenue in 2024
Wache’s revelation comes despite his admission that the initial development avenue Red Bull pursued last season in response to McLaren’s surge was incorrect.
The Frenchman has acknowledged that Red Bull must rediscover how to produce a benign-handling machine that doesn’t come at a cost to the RB21’s performance ceiling.
“The most important thing is that you are always looking for ways to make the car faster while ensuring that drivers can get the most out of it,” he added.
“In 2023, we proved that our direction was correct as we were faster than the others.
“Last year taught us that we were not correct then.
“It is always about finding a balance between the balance of a car and its overall potential. We have to solve that issue for next season.”
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