Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache hasn’t ruled out the team running into further development issues during the 2025 Formula 1 campaign.
Red Bull ruled the roost during the first two years of the current F1 rules cycle but encountered stiff competition in 2024.
That came about largely from problems of the team’s own making, a mid-season winless slump spanning 10 races, triggered by an unbalanced RB20 machine.
Red Bull developed the RB20 in a fashion that made it hard to extract real performance, with correlation issues from wind tunnel to track evident.
As F1 heads into a crucial final year of the current rules cycle, Wache is hopeful that Red Bull has righted the wrongs of last year, but cannot rule out encountering further troubles down the line.
In a conversation with Autosport, Wache said Red Bull’s correlation issues have “Improved in the areas we understand.
“But in Formula 1, you are always at the mercy of having another problem,” he added.
“It is reality and it’s the reason why we are here, to try and anticipate the problems that we will have. It’s dangerous to trust the system blindly.
“I don’t say that we don’t have to, but you have to make sure that you put everything into perspective and that you don’t reproduce on track exactly what you test.”
Red Bull partly recovered from its mid-season troubles with Max Verstappen battling adversity from within the cockpit and external challengers to secure his fourth Drivers’ title at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Dutchman broke the team’s 10-race victory drought in Sao Paulo, before adding a further victory in Qatar but Red Bull relinquished its two-year-hold on the Constructors’ title, slipping to fifth.
Chasing both titles in 2025, the last year of the current rule cycle hinges on Red Bull anticipating correlation and development issues ahead of time.
Red Bull’s 2024 struggles a ‘positive’ – Wache
Still, Wache has found positives from the negatives.
The Red Bull Technical Director assessed that it is only in struggle that one can assess their true potential.
Red Bull, of course, had its fair share of struggles last year and Wache explained how that will be of benefit moving forward.
“A team can only be good when you have doubts and when you are never sure of yourself. If you are sure of yourself, you know that you are a failure,” Wache explained.
“To be very honest with you: what we faced during the past year, as an engineer I find that very positive.
“When you are winning, you never look into problems or details at the same level compared to when you are having problems on track.
“When you are not the quickest any more, then you look and you learn. And the more you learn, the more of an investment that is for the future.”
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