Red Bull dominated the grid in 2023 with a one-two finish between champion Max Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez, and team principal Christian Horner is targeting the same this year
Red Bull are already planning for the 2025 season after performance engineer Ben Waterhouse revealed that the car for this year’s campaign, the RB20, is already “at least six months old.”
Red Bull’s RB19 vehicle secured a spot in the Formula 1 record books last season as drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez finished first and second, respectively. Red Bull won all but one of the 22 races. Team principal Christian Horner has stated that the RB19 is “the most successful car in F1 history,” and the RB20, which will be used in the upcoming season, appears to only require minor tweaks, despite Verstappen’s assertion that the dominant car still needed improvements.
“The RB20 is a car that is at least six months old,” Waterhouse revealed, as quoted by Formula Passion. “And we are already starting to move our attention on the RB21, even if the season has not yet started.”
He went on to say: “We are aware that the RB19 had considerable limitations. If we think back to Singapore, weaknesses have certainly emerged. There are areas we want to improve, be it performance at high or low speeds. At the same time, [the machine] had clear strong points, which we want to enhance while at the same time trying to address its critical issues.”
Red Bull will need to keep pushing forward to stay ahead of their rivals, with McLaren enjoying a strong end to the season, Mercedes desperate to improve on their disappointing 2023 and Ferrari also in the mix. It was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who denied Red Bull a clean sweep, taking P1 in Singapore, although Horner doesn’t seem to be losing sleep over missing out.
“I never dreamt about it and you guys [the media] have been asking me since about race three, ‘Do you think you can win all the races this year?’,” the Red Bull boss told Motorsport.com. “To win 21 out of the 22 races is insanity.
“For Max to have led over 1,000 laps; for him to have won 19 races, to have broken McLaren’s record from ’88; to have broken Seb’s [Vettel] record from 2013; the win ratios; all the percentages that he’s hit. This car [the RB 19] will go down in history certainly for a considerable period of time as the most successful car in Formula 1 history.”
When the new season gets underway, Red Bull is eager to create history once more. The first Grand Prix is scheduled for Sunday, March 2, in Bahrain. On the other hand, the RB20’s unveiling date is still unknown.
The three-time world champion Verstappen just revealed that he has experienced driving Red Bull’s eagerly awaited new vehicle in a simulator. “Although the car isn’t yet tangible, it appears intriguing… Laughing on the Talking Bull podcast, the Dutchman said, “I can’t pull the blueprint out.”