Red Bull releases first images of 2025 RB21

Red Bull has pulled the covers off its new RB21, the machine Max Verstappen will drive in his bid to secure a fifth consecutive Formula 1 drivers’ title in 2025.

Unveiled just ahead of the three-day pre-season test in Bahrain, starting Wednesday, the RB21 marks Red Bull’s final car under the current ground-effect regulations cycle.

Verstappen, now paired with new teammate Liam Lawson following Sergio Perez’s struggles and subsequent exit, will look to reassert the team’s dominance after a turbulent 2024 season.

The RB21 retains a near-identical livery to its predecessor, the RB20, first glimpsed at the F1 75 launch in London last week.

However, beneath the surface, it’s an evolution aimed at fixing the balance woes that plagued Red Bull last year.

Early in 2024, Verstappen and Red Bull crushed the competition, but McLaren’s rapid gains caught them off guard.

As the season progressed, balance issues with the RB20 frustrated both drivers, particularly Perez, and Red Bull slipped to third in the constructors’ standings behind McLaren and Ferrari.

It wasn’t until the Italian Grand Prix in September that the team pinpointed their missteps, but the damage was done.

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While low-light images conceal the RB21’s full secrets, Red Bull aims to widen its operating window without dulling its edge.

Technical director Pierre Wache explained the focus for 2025: “The main thing that you are trying to achieve is a balance between making a car that is quicker than the others and making it nice to drive so that drivers can extract the most from it,” he told Motorsport.com.

“Last season we were proved that we were not correct. We have to fix it for this year.”

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is confident that last year's car's handling quirks have been solved.

“The team have worked very hard over the winter to work on some of the vices of RB20,” Horner said at last week's F175 Live event.

“I think we’ve had a good winter, and the team has been working incredibly hard.

“We’ll get the first indication next week as to have we managed to address some of the issues.

“We managed to improve them during the course of the latter third of last year, and we’ll see if we’ve managed to go a step further over these early races.”

Red Bull's new contender will take to the track in Bahrain on Tuesday with both Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson at the wheel  for a restricted 'filming day' pre-season testing begins in earnest on Wednesday at Sakhir.

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