Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has admitted that the decision to continue upgrading the team’s 2025 Formula 1 car will come at a detriment to next season’s package.
With a monumental regulation overhaul on the horizon, most teams up and down the pit lane have tackled recent races without prominent changes to their machines.
Red Bull has gone against the grain, though, as the team has pressed on with developing the RB21, introducing a revised floor at Monza and a new front wing in Baku.
That, along with adapted working methodologies under Mekies’ watch, has inspired an uptick in competitiveness that has handed Verstappen an outside title chance.
But while Verstappen retaining his crown remains a long shot, Mekies has insisted that the call to invest time and resources in the 2025 car has been the right choice.
“Certainly, from a Red Bull Racing perspective, even without looking at the other guys around, I think it was [right],” Mekies told media including Motorsport Week.
“It is very important that we get to understand if the project has more performance.
“It’s important that we get to the bottom of it, because we will judge, and we will elaborate next year’s project with the same tools and with the same methodology, even if the regulations are completely different.”
Why Red Bull is still introducing upgrades in 2025
Having long experienced correlation issues between the wind tunnel and the track, Mekies highlighted that it is important to validate how reliable the team’s tools are.
“It’s very important that we validate with this year’s car that our way of looking at the data is correct, and that our way of developing the car is correct,” he said.
“If we can produce that level of performance, then that will give us confidence in the winter for next year’s car.”
Meanwhile, Mekies, who succeeded Christian Horner mid-season, has recognised that Red Bull’s surge in recent weeks could compromise how it begins next season.
“Of course it comes at a cost, undoubtedly, to the ‘26 project,” the Frenchman acknowledged.
“But we feel it’s the right trade-off for us without judging what the other guys are doing.”
READ MORE – Why Max Verstappen is downbeat on F1 title hopes despite outscoring McLaren in Singapore
Discussion about this post