Red Bull F1 chief responds to key Marko demand

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché has addressed a key team concern ahead of the upcoming F1 campaign.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit enters the new year hoping for further title success having wrapped up its fourth consecutive championship with Max Verstappen in 2024.

However, the RB20 car had its difficulties throughout the year and was known to have a narrow set-up window at certain events.

It often led to underperformance and resulted in team advisor Helmut Marko outlining one of the squad's areas of focus for the new season.

“This car needs a wider working window, so that it doesn't immediately become unbalanced when there are slight temperature fluctuations or minor technical changes,” he told Speedweek.

The car struggled more at the hands of Sergio Perez, who has since left the team and been replaced by Liam Lawson.

While Red Bull is determined to make the car less unpredictable weekend-to-weekend, Waché asserted such a task brings its own issues.

“As a dream, you want that of course, but you know that the overall potential decreases if you increase the window,” Waché told Motorsport.com.

Red Bull technical chief outlines crucial 2025 F1 focus

Red Bull introduced an upgrade at the US Grand Prix late on in the 2024 season which somewhat rectified its position in the order and stabilised its development path.

While Verstappen was able to emerge victorious in the drivers' championship, Red Bull slumped to third in the constructors' table - its lowest result since 2019.

An intriguing F1 season lies ahead as stable technical regulations before a rule switch-up next year present the possibility of a closely fought affair at the front of the field in the months to come.

Waché suggested Red Bull's approach for the new season is to discover the window for each circuit rather than having an easier car overall to set up.

“What you want is to be in the right window for each circuit, so that you can anticipate that,” he said. 

“If you can achieve that, why would you want to extend the window and flatten the overall potential of a car?

“You want the fastest car compared to the others. I will not reduce the overall potential to make it easier operationally. 

“You can reduce the potential to help drivers to use the car, but not to help engineers to use the car.”