Red Bull RB21 Speculation Thread

[lio007]

This is going to be the first car since a very long time with more or less no input from Adrian Newey.

The technical team now has to prove they learned their lessons from the RB20 and take the necessary corrections for the RB21.

Areas of development:
# low DF rear wing
# propably extreme, on the edge aero-elasticity

[lio007]

BTW, crashtest seem to be passed:

BREAKING| Red Bull RB21 passes crash test: A pivotal shift

— Red Bull Racing’s RB21 chassis has successfully passed the mandatory FIA crash tests, a critical milestone for any Formula 1 car ahead of its competitive debut. The team completed this step well ahead of schedule, signaling their intent to be fully prepared for the 2025 season.

— This marks a significant shift for Red Bull, as the RB21 is the first car developed without Adrian Newey’s direct involvement after his departure to Aston Martin. Newey’s absence adds pressure on the technical team to maintain Red Bull’s competitive edge.

— The RB21 is expected to introduce notable aerodynamic changes, moving away from the design philosophy of the RB20. The 2024 car showed diminishing returns in the second half of the season, even as Max Verstappen’s extraordinary talent secured his fourth championship.

— Team principal Christian Horner revealed that the car’s development timeline has been accelerated. The RB21 will be unveiled in January, earlier than Red Bull’s traditional late-February presentations. This approach aims to maximize track testing opportunities and provide early data for refinements before the Bahrain pre-season tests.

— Passing the crash tests ahead of schedule allows Red Bull to focus on understanding the car’s on-track behavior. Early use of filming days and test sessions will help verify the RB21’s correlation between virtual simulations and real-world performance.

— The decision to fast-track the car’s launch underscores Red Bull’s acknowledgment of heightened competition from Ferrari and McLaren, who both ended 2024 with strong momentum. Horner emphasized the need for the team to find “certainties” in their technical decisions, particularly in the absence of Newey’s expertise.

— With Red Bull’s dominance challenged and regulatory continuity in place, the RB21’s success on track will be critical in maintaining the team’s stature as a top contender. The car’s early debut reflects a proactive strategy to stay ahead of rivals as the team transitions into a post-Newey era.

[Vanja #66]

I made a review of the 3 cars before and what RB need to solve with RB21 to get back on top



There are inks to individual threads for major aero components too on RB cars. As for RB21, these are 5 major topics in my view

massive improvement of suspension system, with the biggest accent on reducing front suspension stiffness without losing high-speed stability and performance
further improvements on the floor in order to reduce low- and medium-speed performance gap to the front, as well as getting back to being the class-leading design in terms of stability and driveability
find a different innovative sidepod development direction to open up a new path for the final season of this regulation cycle - maybe even take some inspiration from McLaren?
increase the front wing load in low-speed section and utilise the flap-flexibility at leas as much as McLaren and Mercedes
work closely with Honda to get back on top of reliability issues that cost them the win at Spa this year

[Paa]

Interesting shift in philosophy (early crash-test and filming days), suggesting that they are still not confident with their simulations.

I'm really curious about the tone of their first impressions after the on track runs.
Getting good correlation would project a strong year, real remedy for Waché.
But being on the bad side would lead to hit or miss season with lots of trial and error suffering. Even Horner's position could seriously weaken after a year like that.

[f1316]

I made a review of the 3 cars before and what RB need to solve with RB21 to get back on top



There are inks to individual threads for major aero components too on RB cars. As for RB21, these are 5 major topics in my view

massive improvement of suspension system, with the biggest accent on reducing front suspension stiffness without losing high-speed stability and performance
further improvements on the floor in order to reduce low- and medium-speed performance gap to the front, as well as getting back to being the class-leading design in terms of stability and driveability
find a different innovative sidepod development direction to open up a new path for the final season of this regulation cycle - maybe even take some inspiration from McLaren?
increase the front wing load in low-speed section and utilise the flap-flexibility at leas as much as McLaren and Mercedes
work closely with Honda to get back on top of reliability issues that cost them the win at Spa this year

Thanks for this, as ever.

Regarding suspension, much was initially made (eg in The Race) of Red Bull’s anti-dive/anti-squat suspension - almost heralded as the silver bullet for their success. While this was clearly always over exaggerated, I’m curious about your suggestion that they need “massive improvement on the suspension system” - do you think this is a question of others simply pushing the needle and surpassing RB, or was the RB suspension never really all it was cracked up to be? Or indeed something else (eg that the 2023 suspension was good and they took a wrong turn)?

[Henk_v]

Generally speaking, red bull have been leading the way. They got the downwashing concept right, have been the example for the inlets, had all teams chasing them on the DRS - diffuser interaction and have for a big part been setting the standard on floors.

Yes, the have done some copying themselves too, but generally they have been leading.

This year teams caught up. Next year will be the year Red Bull is not the usual suspect for the car to beat.

I think they will choose to hold off on winter development a bit and are gearing up for heavy in-(early) season development.

Getting the data early and resources freed up early will help

[GoranF1]

This is going to be the first car since a very long time with more or less no input from Adrian Newey.

The technical team now has to prove they learned their lessons from the RB20 and take the necessary corrections for the RB21.

Areas of development:
# low DF rear wing
# propably extreme, on the edge aero-elasticity

This is the first real test for RB since they started the team. First car whitout Newey. If they didn't have Max they would probably be in threat of not making Q3 in the second part of 2025 .
Max is going to flatter the car like Alonso does.

[lio007]

This is going to be the first car since a very long time with more or less no input from Adrian Newey.

The technical team now has to prove they learned their lessons from the RB20 and take the necessary corrections for the RB21.

Areas of development:
# low DF rear wing
# propably extreme, on the edge aero-elasticity

This is the first real test for RB since they started the team. First car whitout Newey. If they didn't have Max they would probably be in threat of not making Q3 in the second part of 2025 .
Max is going to flatter the car like Alonso does.

We haven't seen anything of the RB21. It's a bit wild to think they will struggle so much in the second part of 2025.

[marcel171281]

This is going to be the first car since a very long time with more or less no input from Adrian Newey.

The technical team now has to prove they learned their lessons from the RB20 and take the necessary corrections for the RB21.

Areas of development:
# low DF rear wing
# propably extreme, on the edge aero-elasticity

This is the first real test for RB since they started the team. First car whitout Newey. If they didn't have Max they would probably be in threat of not making Q3 in the second part of 2025 .
Max is going to flatter the car like Alonso does.

In the last 11 seasons, only twice was the best car from Newey's hand. He is not the only guy in F1 that knows how to design an F1 car. And apart from that, designing an F1 car involves slighty more people than 1.

[Chuckjr]

This is going to be the first car since a very long time with more or less no input from Adrian Newey.

The technical team now has to prove they learned their lessons from the RB20 and take the necessary corrections for the RB21.

Areas of development:
# low DF rear wing
# propably extreme, on the edge aero-elasticity

This is the first real test for RB since they started the team. First car whitout Newey. If they didn't have Max they would probably be in threat of not making Q3 in the second part of 2025 .
Max is going to flatter the car like Alonso does.

In the last 11 seasons, only twice was the best car from Newey's hand. He is not the only guy in F1 that knows how to design an F1 car. And apart from that, designing an F1 car involves slighty more people than 1.

What? Come on man. The Merc was dominant not because of aero. Not because of the driver. But because they had a HUGE HUGE horsepower advantage. They also invented a trick suspension system. Again, not aero. So claiming Merc has been superior to Newey aero for the last decade is absolutely ludicrous when looking at the whole picture. It's the same kinda baseless superior illusion people have about Lewis. smh.

[Emag]

This is the first real test for RB since they started the team. First car whitout Newey. If they didn't have Max they would probably be in threat of not making Q3 in the second part of 2025 .
Max is going to flatter the car like Alonso does.

In the last 11 seasons, only twice was the best car from Newey's hand. He is not the only guy in F1 that knows how to design an F1 car. And apart from that, designing an F1 car involves slighty more people than 1.

What? Come on man. The Merc was dominant not because of aero. Not because of the driver. But because they had a HUGE HUGE horsepower advantage. They also invented a trick suspension system. Again, not aero. So claiming Merc has been superior to Newey aero for the last decade is absolutely ludicrous when looking at the whole picture. It's the same kinda baseless superior illusion people have about Lewis. smh.

You think the W9, W10 and W11 were all winners only due to power unit advantage?

2 of those competed against a much more powerful Ferrari engine, while the other one is a technical masterpiece that broke every track record it took part in.

The baseless illusion is on you for thinking Mercedes only had their power unit going on for them during the longest stretch of double title domination the sport has seen …

Idk what people mean by “2018 Ferrari engine myth”, but Ferrari having the best power unit in 2018 is a fact, not a myth. Nobody is saying it was illegal in 2018 already. Only in 2019 the power unit was a little too good.

They had plenty of power in 2018 already though :

[bluechris]

In the last 11 seasons, only twice was the best car from Newey's hand. He is not the only guy in F1 that knows how to design an F1 car. And apart from that, designing an F1 car involves slighty more people than 1.

What? Come on man. The Merc was dominant not because of aero. Not because of the driver. But because they had a HUGE HUGE horsepower advantage. They also invented a trick suspension system. Again, not aero. So claiming Merc has been superior to Newey aero for the last decade is absolutely ludicrous when looking at the whole picture. It's the same kinda baseless superior illusion people have about Lewis. smh.

You think the W9, W10 and W11 were all winners only due to power unit advantage?

2 of those competed against a much more powerful Ferrari engine, while the other one is a technical masterpiece that broke every track record it took part in.

The baseless illusion is on you for thinking Mercedes only had their power unit going on for them during the longest stretch of double title domination the sport has seen …

Idk what people mean by “2018 Ferrari engine myth”, but Ferrari having the best power unit in 2018 is a fact, not a myth. Nobody is saying it was illegal in 2018 already. Only in 2019 the power unit was a little too good.

They had plenty of power in 2018 already though :

The video you posted show exactly the opposite of what you try you point.
From 2014 to 2017 the engine played the biggest role in Mercedes domination and after that when the others did catch up in the engine, we see a Mercedes team fixing their aero to be on top or equal with them. After 2021 the others went on top and we all saw MB unable to fix their aero problems.

[Vanja #66]

Honda's assessments, public:



In detail:



https://www.jsae.or.jp/engine_rev/backn ... 05/03.html

[Emag]

What? Come on man. The Merc was dominant not because of aero. Not because of the driver. But because they had a HUGE HUGE horsepower advantage. They also invented a trick suspension system. Again, not aero. So claiming Merc has been superior to Newey aero for the last decade is absolutely ludicrous when looking at the whole picture. It's the same kinda baseless superior illusion people have about Lewis. smh.

You think the W9, W10 and W11 were all winners only due to power unit advantage?

2 of those competed against a much more powerful Ferrari engine, while the other one is a technical masterpiece that broke every track record it took part in.

The baseless illusion is on you for thinking Mercedes only had their power unit going on for them during the longest stretch of double title domination the sport has seen …

Idk what people mean by “2018 Ferrari engine myth”, but Ferrari having the best power unit in 2018 is a fact, not a myth. Nobody is saying it was illegal in 2018 already. Only in 2019 the power unit was a little too good.

They had plenty of power in 2018 already though :

The video you posted show exactly the opposite of what you try you point.
From 2014 to 2017 the engine played the biggest role in Mercedes domination and after that when the others did catch up in the engine, we see a Mercedes team fixing their aero to be on top or equal with them. After 2021 the others went on top and we all saw MB unable to fix their aero problems.

The years you mention were only half of Mercedes’ domination and my point wasn’t that Mercedes didn’t initially have a huge power advantage. My point, was that Mercedes didn’t have that power advantage the whole way and they continued to dominate even when going against more powerful engines.

It’s just wrong to say they had nothing going on for them except for the powerful engines. Mercedes was at the top of the game for too long and nobody stays that long at the top just because one reason only.

It’s disrespectful to the team of engineers who made those cars to claim the power unit is what gave them the entire advantage.

From what I remember watching the races back in 2018, I always assumed Ferrari had a better engine than Mercedes, but it seems like at worst it might have been on par with them. That’s still more reason to credit Mercedes aero.

Still, my original comment was actually made as a counter-argument to those who just hold Newey to such high standards, he is practically a god in F1.

You can win without Newey and most of the last decade is proof of that.

[organic]

"If we continue like this, I will not be champion next year. It is that simple. We really have to make steps to be competitive next season. We all know that," says Verstappen. "I trust that the team can fix the balance problems of last season. And certain things that we could not change last year will be changed for next year. We know that it has to be better over the kerbs, bumps and in the slow corners. Those are generally our weak points. If we are still beaten, it will be on the basis of pure speed."