According to Max Verstappen, the handling problems with the Red Bull RB21 go beyond correlation issues with the outdated wind tunnel
Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen believes that the handling problems with the 2025 car are not solely due to correlation errors with the team’s aging wind tunnel, as Red Bull team boss Christian Horner recently suggested.
“Of course, we’re not entirely happy with it and are working on a new wind tunnel,” Verstappen said on Thursday ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. “It takes time, but we knew that beforehand. It’s nothing new this season.”
“We already saw in 2023 that you can’t see certain things in the wind tunnel. But the team has experience with this and knows which direction to go in,” emphasized the Dutchman. ”The only problem is that you can’t perfect some small details.”
“But it worked in 2022 and 2023 – and in 2021 we also had a good car under different regulations. So I wouldn’t blame everything on the wind tunnel.”
Red Bull has had a difficult start to the 2025 season with a car that is difficult to balance and suffers from higher tire wear than the leading McLaren. Verstappen was able to limit the damage in the first two races and then celebrated a surprise start-to-finish victory in Japan.
But last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix – on the hot and abrasive Sakhir circuit, which put a lot of strain on the rear tires – once again exposed the weaknesses of the RB21. Verstappen couldn’t finish higher than sixth.
Team boss Christian Horner admitted afterwards that Red Bull was still struggling with similar technical problems to those that had made it difficult for the team to defend its initial championship lead against McLaren last year. Some of the peculiarities that the car exhibits on the track apparently cannot be fully replicated in the old wind tunnel.
The team is currently building a new wind tunnel in Milton Keynes, but it is not expected to be operational until 2027 at the earliest. Verstappen acknowledges that the discrepancies in the wind tunnel are not helping the situation, but says that the infrastructure cannot be solely blamed for the car’s shortcomings.
When asked whether the current problems make him pessimistic about 2026, he replies: “It’s a completely different car, so you can’t compare it. It could also be a different team that suddenly gets everything right.”
