How Max Verstappen Masked Red Bull's 2025 RB21 Problems

Max Verstappen's 2025 performance superficially masked the underlying and persistent competitiveness issues of the Red Bull RB21, a car that struggled with inconsistent performance and development stagnation throughout the season.

Why it matters:

Verstappen's driving prowess has often compensated for car deficiencies, but a technical analysis reveals the RB21 remained fundamentally flawed. Understanding this gap is crucial as Red Bull aims to reclaim a clear performance advantage over rivals like McLaren for the 2026 season.

The details:

• The RB21's performance was non-linear, with periods of stagnation and negative phases that were difficult to predict.
• It started the season competitive but not on par with McLaren, except at the Japanese Grand Prix where Suzuka's technical layout favored its rear grip.
• The car proved ineffective on tracks requiring fast, precise directional changes and never regained the balanced feel Verstappen noted was lost in 2024.
• Team principal Laurent Mekies indicated the 2025 development focus was on understanding past failures rather than generating significant performance gains.
• A floor upgrade introduced at the Italian Grand Prix aligned the car's behavior more closely with simulation data, but performance on theoretically favorable tracks like Interlagos was unexpectedly poor.
• Post-summer break developments, aside from the Monza floor, did not deliver decisive performance improvements.

The big picture:

The RB21 exhibited a temperamental nature consistent with its predecessor, following a slow performance decline. While the gap to McLaren in the championship standings appeared less severe by season's end, the deficit in pure performance remained significant. Verstappen's potential title win would have only superficially hidden the RB21 project's vulnerabilities, which ultimately lagged far behind the McLaren MCL39 in outright capability. The car's saving grace was that its dynamic behavior became more predictable and controllable in setup, allowing Verstappen to extract maximum results from a sub-optimal package.