The “subtle” Red Bull update was launched ahead of the Singapore of F1 GP

Even if Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda finished 1-2 in each Grand Prize and Sprint prize remaining from the 2025 season of Formula 1, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris not to finish, Red Bull could not check McLaren in the Builders Championship. But Verstappen still has a chance, although thin, to take advantage of the title of the drivers.

To that end, Red Bull has continued to bring developments to the RB21, including a new front wing geometry in Singapore, before completely turning the new car required for 2026. Only Verstappen has the new design this weekend.

“The car is better,” said Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan, to the selected media, including Motorsport.com in the FIA ​​and Tell ‘Brief Tech program in Singapore.

“Now the question is, can we challenge the previous order of the high force circuits down and see if we can win? We are going to try, see how we move forward. It should be a little better. The question is, how much?”

Although the consecutive victories of Verstappen in Monza and Baku could suggest that the line of trend for performance has changed dramatically upwards, both were low -downing circuits that masked some of the perceived deficiencies of the RB21. The circuits that require a greater aerodynamic load, such as Singapore, have ruthlessly exposed the problems of Red Bull with the drag efficiency, something that the team experienced with the RB20 and tried to leave the RB21, at first without success.

In High-Downforce, Red Bull’s car has been dragged and less stable than his McLaren rival, suffering unpredictable equilibrium changes through the different phases of the curves at high speeds. The team’s approach throughout this season has been to achieve, as quickly as possible and without compromising the development of 2026, the objectives that had really established for the beginning of the year.

A new floor introduced in Silverstone, followed by another added package in Belgium that included a new front wing, as well as reviews to the sides, opened new developments that could be achieved relatively cheap and hurry through production before the 2026 project began to occupy the manufacturing capacity.

The new floor for Monza was the last element of large tickets with a long waiting time. What we are seeing now was probably signed immediately after the summer holidays, when the team reviewed its high force front wing for Zandvoort.

Since the front wing is a visible area of ​​the car, Red Bull has to explain the purpose of the change in the technical document of the FIA ​​circulated before the event. He described the new geometry as “taking more research to increase the inclination of some wing sections to extract more load while maintaining the stability of the flow.”

“We hope to extract a little more time back,” Monaghan explained. “It is a fairly subtle review.” But as the last one was launched (for Zandvoort), more evidence became evident: “Oh, we could do this and we could do that.”

“A little capacity is available, so we have moved on and we have pressed the button and said: ‘Yes, we will bring it.’ It should be the last one for this year.

“The manufacturing group is in a bit of a retention pattern, but the 2026 car has not yet flooded, so there is a small window that say that we could do this and, a brilliant job of them, have succeeded and have done it.”

Since there will be no more new components apart from the specific ornaments of the circuit, the responsibility is now in the trackside team to extract the maximum of the last package. Verstappen’s interest in the current season has been revitalized by his victories in Monza and Baku, but the team must maintain that impulse.

Singapore is the only place where Verstappen has never won. The question is whether the subtle improvements that have been producing the latest updates will be added to Red Bull being more competitive here; You will have to do better than in Zandvoort, the last highway downward track on the calendar, where Verstappen had no response to the rhythm of the two McLarens career.

“I think it will give us a good impulse of trust, maybe a little massage, we will say, if we are doing very well here,” said Monaghan. “But if we don’t, then we are not going to give up and go to Austin as if we are not going to do anything. We will go to Austin as if we could try to win that race too.

“All kinds can happen here: it can go to curve 1 and be expelled. Remember the images of SEB (Vettel) arriving there with a couple of Ferraris (in 2017) and it is chaos, right?

“I think we will do everything possible here, we will extract what we can from the car, Max and Yuki will do their part, and Austin is two weeks away and we will address it in the same way. We will only try to win it and see what happens.”

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– The Motorsport.com team