While Red Bull are optimistic of rebounding, the RB21 has been deemed not “quick enough” to make a winning start to the season.

That verdict comes from Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache, who highlighted two teams he believes are better placed to fight for victory at the Australian Grand Prix.

Red Bull: ‘Doesn’t look like we are quick enough’

Red Bull found themselves having to dig deep after their dominant ways faded in 2024, the team going without a win in 10 races at one stage as they worked to get their RB20 back on the right path.

Max Verstappen’s feedback at a disappointing Italian Grand Prix was credited as the spark for recovery, as the team look to return to the F1 summit in 2025 after slipping to P3 in the Constructors’ Championship. Verstappen was able to hold firm and secure a fourth straight Drivers’ title.

And ahead of the F1 2025 campaign, all 10 teams descended on the Bahrain International Circuit for a three-day test with their new creations, but it was Red Bull who completed the fewest laps of all with 304.

And after a test which included the chilly rain-impacted Day 2 – far from typical conditions in Bahrain – Wache had admitted that Red Bull had work to do before Melbourne, as the RB21 “did not respond how” Red Bull expected at some stages.

“It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the team expected, but it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car,” he said.

“The weather was not with us and not very representative of this track, but we tried to explore the potential of the car and tried to understand how it responds to different set-ups, and I think we more or less achieved that.

“I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.”

But, speaking of the first race, Wache made the concerning Australian GP prediction that McLaren and Ferrari look faster than Red Bull.

“I think it will be tight,” Wache told The Race as he began to predict the pecking order for Round 1 in Melbourne.

“At the moment it doesn’t look like we are quick enough, but after we will see.

“It looks like McLaren and Ferrari are quicker.”

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That being said, Wache did stress that it is difficult to predict with authority where the teams stand, as Red Bull are still working to fully understand how to extract maximum performance from their RB21.

“We have some feedback that is as we expect, in terms of how the car reacts and in terms of balance,” he added. “There are more flatter characteristics than the peakiness [with the RB20].

“But I think we still have work to do on how to use the potential of it. It is difficult to rebalance the car currently, but we are exploring different solutions.

“The first day was okay. [The second day], we didn’t find a sweet spot. And we also had some issues. So it is difficult to say in terms of competitiveness at the moment.”

Verstappen has a new team-mate at Red Bull for F1 2025 as he chases a fifth straight title, Liam Lawson making the step up from Racing Bulls after the departure of Sergio Perez.

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