Revealed: How new Red Bull differs from troublesome RB20

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché has explained what areas of the team's car have been changed ahead of the 2025 F1 season getting underway.

Visually, the RB20 that ended last term and the new RB21 are very similar, with the latter having a more refined bodywork being the only stand-out difference.

Underneath, however, the Milton Keynes squad has made extensive changes, adopting a slightly different philosophy for the start of last year.

Waché has claimed it is a bigger departure than was seen between 2023's RB19 and the first iteration of the RB20, despite it looking markedly distinct.

"We re-evaluated all the concepts of the car," the Frenchman said to PlanetF1.com. "We modified most of the stuff that is maybe not as visible as the older car – the concepts overall stay the same – but plenty of stuff has changed underneath and inside the car that, in terms of cooling, suspension, aero package, everything has changed to achieve the characteristics we like.

"The overall shape of the car and bodywork, which is mainly what you will see, are similar, but not because the concept… I would say we re-evaluated, and we think it was the best compromise for what we were looking for."

RB21 has lower 'potential' than the RB20

In particular, Red Bull has strived to make the RB21 more benign and compliant than the RB20 - desirable characteristics for an F1 car, as it can be more easily adapted and set up.

The RB20 was difficult for the six-time constructors' championship to understand, having upgraded it into a developmental black hole.

However, the trade-off is that in doing so, the team has had to opt for a more malleable package with an overall lower potential.

"I don’t want to say too much, but it’s clear that we had a very, very peaky car, with high potential that was difficult to extract – if we wanted to extract this, it was creating some difficulty for the driver to use it, and, especially, at slow corners, giving some instability for the driver to use it," Waché explained.

"What we did this year, is to maybe reduce the complete potential of the car, the peakiness, but giving a more easy way to use by the driver – that’s what our main purpose was, especially on the entry of the corner.

"It’s not as simple as that, because it’s a characteristic that the peak of downforce is not only on one dimension. It’s a multi-dimensional system that is not only downforce – it is also suspension-wise and what the kinematic is doing, but is an overall car characteristic of how the driver feels.

"But, fundamentally, it’s exactly that – reduce the overall potential in grip and capacity of the car to make it more flat. That’s what we are seeing at the moment.

"Last year, we had a quite difficult car and, to rebalance it, it would put you in a corner in terms of what you could do [setup-wise].

"Now it is giving us a wider range of setups that we have to explore. And it will take time to see what the best compromise is, and the compromise could be quite different from track to track, because it gives us a lot more freedom."