What Red Bull needs to beat Mercedes
The team is as hungry as ever for a fifth world championship. There are key challenges it must overcome in 2021 to switch from challenger to conqueror
CHRISTIAN HORNER knows his stats. In the years since Mercedes ascended to Formula 1 domination in 2014 and a two-tier championship was unofficially amalgamated, his squad has been able to take victories from the Silver/black Arrows in every year bar 2015. In construct ors’ championship placings, however, Ferrari has the second-best record, with four runner-up spots to Red Bull’s three.
Then the Italian team’s hard fall from the front last year meant the teams vying for victories was down to two.
Off-season noises emerging from Ferrari suggest the team is confident of producing a new engine that will at least make up for some of its unexpected 2020 power deficiency. But, as that is far from guaranteed, F1 heads into 2021 with Red Bull again expected to be Mercedes’ biggest threat.
But it’s been here before. Last year, stable technical rules from
2019 were expected to close up the field, with Red Bull aiming to banish the slow start it made two years ago while grappling with the front-wing changes. Then, although the pandemic delayed the start of the 2020 season until the summer, the result was Mercedes’w11 re-establishing the team’s gap over the pack to its largest extent since the early years of the turbo-hybrid era.
Red Bull was ultimately undone by a car that had an inherent aerodynamic imbalance, which meant the RB16 was very tricky to drive. The team got to work in addressing its issues early in the delayed campaign, but only Max Verstappen was able to get among the Mercedes drivers, even as Red Bull eroded the gap to the front with several development steps.
This progress culminated in Verstappen’s victory from pole in the 2020 season finale. Although Mercedes clearly underperformed in Abu Dhabi, where it had been supreme since replacing Red Bull as F1’s leading team, the win raised hopes of a closer title fight in 2021. After all, the cost-saving measures enacted in response to the pandemic mean the cars that line up on the Bahrain Grand Prix grid next month will feature many parts carried over from the machinery that closed out 2020.
The question now is: can Red Bull finally go from challenger back to conqueror?
“WE HAVE BEEN THE MOST CONSISTENT CHALLENGER OVER THE PAST SEVEN YEARS. WE’VE MANAGED TO WIN RACES IN SIX OF THOSE YEARS. AND IT’S IMPORTANT FOR US TO KEEP TRYING TO BE BETTER IN EVERY AREA.”
RED BULL MUST… NAVIGATE THE DESIGN RULE CHANGES BEST
If Red Bull is to have any hope of finally reversing seven years of defeat against Mercedes, it must make the most of the limited development allowed for this year. Plus, it must do a better job of adapting the RB16B around the changes mandated to cut downforce levels by 10%.
The teams knew heading into the delayed 2020 campaign that they were embarking on a two-year development project for their latest designs, albeit with a token-system limitation for upgrades. This meant they were free to take different paths in updating their 2020 cars throughout last season: regularly throughout, as Red Bull did; or shift resources to nailing the 2021 rule changes early, as Mercedes did.
While the design restrictions mean the annual unveiling of new cars will necessarily be different this year, the rule changes do add up. That is why Mercedes has gone out of its way to publicly highlight the dangers these tweaks represent.
The main area of concern comes down to clawing back the downforce lost by the triangle cut-out of aero parts at the rear of the floors, plus the reduced diffuser size. There is added importance for the Mercedes versus Red Bull fight here, because the two teams have different rearaero approaches. Red Bull has long favoured the high-rake concept, while Mercedes runs much lower to the ground. It’s thought that the changes to the floor rules for 2021 will cause additional challenges for one of these approaches, but it’s not yet clear which one will be hampered most. So, there is both hope and danger for Red Bull’s chances when it comes to adapting to the new floor regulations.
“It’s been an intense winter, with the whole COVID situation as well,”says Horner about Red Bull’s preparation in this unique offseason for modern F1.“it’s been busy. The team have done a great job working around the challenges that we’ve faced.
“We’ve been assisted by the fact that there’s a large percentage of the regulations that are carried over, which is unusual. But generally, I think the team is in pretty good shape.”
RED BULL MUST… START STRONGLY
Making a slow start has been Red Bull’s second major weakness in recent years, but that should be less of a factor this time around. If that sentence seems familiar, that’s because it comes from page 23 of the 12 March 2020 edition of Autosport. At that stage last year, hopes were high that Red Bull could finally close the gap to Mercedes (sounds familiar…) as it had been winter testing’s dark horse. Mercedes clearly led the way, but Red Bull seemed confident, even with Verstappen and Alex Albon having wayward moments that were put down to ‘finding the limit’.
In 2020, Red Bull was not facing the challenge of adapting to new front-wing regulations within an annually refreshed car, and so a repeat of the slow start it made in 2019 while dealing with exactly that problem was theoretically removed. As we now know, the team did start 2020 on the back foot and played catch-up to Mercedes all season. This firmly established the trend that has cost Red Bull considerably in recent years – it is very difficult to overcome a deficit in-season and, when it does, Mercedes is then too far ahead.
After the comprehensive defeats Red Bull suffered in the opening
“WE’VE WORKED HARD TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE STRUGGLED FOR CORRELATION AT THE BEGINNING OF LAST YEAR”
rounds of the last campaign, the team quickly set about establishing what had gone wrong. The official line changed from‘finding the limit’to“something misbehaving aerodynamically”, according to Horner at the Hungarian GP in July.
“We’ve worked very hard to understand why we struggled for correlation at the beginning of last year,”horner now explains.“when [the season] eventually got going, compared with what our simulation tools were telling us, both windtunnel and other tools [something was amiss]. So, we learned a lot during 2020. And, of course, the challenge now is to apply that in 2021.
“We gained a lot of understanding through last year, and I think some of it was the complexities of our windtunnel, which has its limitations in some respects.”
This is the paradox Red Bull faces in 2021: the carryover requirement removes much of any excuse for starting poorly compared to where it finished last season, but the rule changes are complex enough that they could trip up any team.
RED BULL MUST… HOPE ITS 2020 DEVELOPMENT APPROACH WAS CORRECT
The teams knew that there were different paths they could take when it came to adapting their designs for 2021. Red Bull continued to work on the RB16 throughout the final stages of last season, and even at the last race it sported a single mount for its rear wing.
Mercedes, meanwhile, stopped updating the W11 after August’s Belgian GP. These differing approaches help to explain why the gap between F1’s leading squads closed considerably over the second half of the season, although Red Bull still only managed to add one more win (the Yas Marina success) to Verstappen’s 70th Anniversary GP triumph at Silverstone. This further highlights the scale of Red
Bull’s challenge to topple Mercedes.
“Mercedes publicly said they stopped developing their 2020 car to focus on 2021,”says Horner.“so, we’ll see, obviously, in Bahrain, the step forward they’ve made. I think the regulation changes are bigger than were anticipated, on the aero side of things.”
There is danger for both teams on this point. Red Bull has the“lessons that we’ve learned”as Horner repeatedly reiterates, while Mercedes will have to wait for the reduced pre-season testing time to see if the W12’s updates and tweaks work as it hopes. The flipside is that it will have been able to focus its resources on ensuring these do work as intended, to take a further performance step from what was arguably its best car of the turbo-hybrid era (Horner agrees on this), which was so good it maintained its pace advantage even without updates for 10 races.
RED BULL MUST… HAVE BOTH DRIVERS TAKE POINTS FROM MERCEDES
F1’s leading two teams have had two very different experiences in terms of driver line-up stability in recent years.
Mercedes replaced the tense but successful Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg set-up with harmony between Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Over the same period since 2014, Red Bull has fielded six drivers, and will add a seventh, with Sergio Perez coming in to replace Albon for this season.
Red Bull’s driver line-up imbalance was the first weakness we referred to in our 2020 season preview piece on the team. It has a megastar in Verstappen, but since Daniel Ricciardo departed at the end of 2018 it simply hasn’t been able to get its second car into contention. Pierre Gasly couldn’t match Verstappen from the off in 2019, while Albon likewise couldn’t get on the Dutchman’s performance level, and had a harder time taming the unpredictable RB16.
This imbalance has cost Red Bull results. There was the infamous 2019 Hungarian GP, where Gasly’s absence from the lead fight meant Verstappen lost against Hamilton’s two-stop charge. Last year, had
Red Bull had its second car running close to Verstappen in the British
GP, it might have instead pitted that RB16 to take the fastest lap point, which would have left Verstappen to clear up when the Mercedes drivers had their tyre failures. At Imola, Mercedes demonstrated how having two cars provides a tactical advantage, as Verstappen was able to overcome the Ferrari-bodywork-hobbled Bottas, but couldn’t prevent Hamilton going from third to first on a contra-strategy. Then there were the Italian and Sakhir GP wins for Alphatauri and Racing Point respectively. On days where Mercedes messes up, it reflects badly on Red Bull too if it cannot pick up the pieces.
This is a problem that hiring Perez, who drove for the Horner family’s Arden GP2 team in 2009, is designed to cure. The Mexican is the first non-red Bull junior to join the senior squad since Mark Webber in
2007, and it’s his F1 experience and achievements that made him a desirable option for the team, which went into 2020 expecting
Albon to prove that he deserved to keep the drive alongside Verstappen.
“It was a tremendously difficult decision, and one that we were fortunate to have time to be able to fully consider – the whole season in fact,”says Horner.“and it’s highly unusual for a driver of Sergio’s quality and ability to be on the market.
“So, we just felt that we would be better placed putting in a more experienced driver alongside Max as we head into 2021, and that we continue to work with and develop Alex‘offline’. He still remains very much part of the team – he’s driving the simulator today as we speak. It was a grown-up view that we took to go outside of the [junior] scheme and to give Sergio a chance.”
Perez is unlikely to match Verstappen in terms of pure speed, but he comes into 2021 in fine form given his victory at the Sakhir GP and podium in Turkey. That should have been accompanied by two more top-three results from Imola and the Bahrain GP, but for a Racing Point safety-car strategy call going awry in Italy and an MGU-K failure causing his retirement at Sakhir.
This is Perez’s second chance to race with a major F1 player
(although his season with Mclaren in 2013 was really the start of that squad falling back significantly). He’s been through a lot of racing experience and success with the Force India/racing Point/
Aston Martin team that he helped save back in 2018. But delivering at the front in 2021 has the added complications of testing being just three days (so 1.5 days total for Perez to familiarise himself with his new mount), and Red Bull’s previous design being tough to drive.
“It’d be very difficult to get himself up to speed in just one test, straight away,”horner says of Perez’s chances of matching Verstappen from the off in 2021.“But he has the benefit of a lot of experience and, of course, we are expecting him to be close to Max and challenging, in a way that we had with Daniel Ricciardo and Max for three seasons. So, hopefully, Sergio can play a really important role for the team in getting both cars, on a consistent basis, near to the Mercedes.”
And this returns us to the key point of Red Bull abandoning its junior scheme hiring policy for the time being. While there is a legitimate argument that it promoted Daniil Kvyat, Gasly and Albon too soon into their respective F1 careers, it wasn’t a problem with Verstappen. With a second driver at or around his level, Red Bull would be a much stronger threat overall.
RED BULL MUST… KEEP PRESSURE ON MERCEDES VIA STRATEGY CALLS
Although Red Bull didn’t know how far off it was when the lights went out at the season-opening 2020 Austrian GP, the team had given Verstappen the same tyre strategy with which he had won on the 2019 visit to its home track. In theory, this was better than the plan Mercedes had given polesitter Bottas (softs at the start versus mediums for Verstappen), but he retired from contention.
But at the 70th Anniversary GP, Verstappen went into the race on the hard tyre compared to the mediums on the two Mercedes, and this gave him a decisive advantage. In the hot conditions, Verstappen pressured the Black Arrows into eating through their tyres early in the race, made a conclusive pass on Bottas, and controlled things to the finish.
Although contra-strategy calls remain a relatively uncommon choice for Red Bull to take (the main strategy is usually such for a reason), it has occasionally delivered results, while Mercedes can occasionally crack under pressure. So, unless a pace advantage means it can afford to be cautious, Red Bull will likely need further bold calls to gain a sporadic edge in 2021.
“WE JUST FELT THAT WE WOULD BE BETTER PLACED PUTTING IN A MORE EXPERIENCED DRIVER ALONGSIDE MAX”
RED BULL MUST… IGNORE SPECULATION ABOUT VERSTAPPEN’S FUTURE
Mercedes and Hamilton agreeing a one-year deal for 2021 triggered additional speculation about its line-up for 2022, as both its seats are now potentially up for grabs. This remains an attractive proposition for Verstappen, who was courted by Mercedes when he raced in Formula 3 before opting to sign with Red Bull because it could offer quick advancement into F1.
He does have a contract at his current squad until the end of
2023, but if all parties agree then anything can happen. So, as much as there is potential for driver line-up uncertainty to finally destabilise Mercedes, the same could be true for Red Bull.
After all, Horner says what Verstappen has“extracted from the car in the last couple of years has been truly impressive”. And this is the crux of the potential issue – Verstappen has held up his end of the bargain by racing at a phenomenally high level (with the odd mistake to sort out,
such as his pre-race crash at the Hungarian GP, or spin in the wet in Turkey), but Red Bull is yet to deliver championship-winning machinery during his tenure.
Horner is unconcerned at this stage, saying:“i’ve been around too long to worry too much about what others are doing. It’s enormously important for ourselves, and obviously Max, to build on the potential that we’ve shown [last year].”
RED BULL MUST… HOPE HONDA STEPS UP BEFORE ITS F1 EXIT
Last week’s news that F1 teams have unanimously agreed to an engine freeze from the start of 2022 boosted Red Bull’s fortunes in an area that has long been a headache for a non-traditional works operation. Following the freeze agreement, Red Bull announced it would take over Honda’s F1 engine operation, creating a new division at its Milton Keynes base called Red Bull Powertrains Ltd. It can now either develop itself the technology for the new engine formula, which was brought forward to 2025 alongside the freeze agreement, or partner with another manufacturer.
But this is all tied into 2021 too. Honda has one final year in which to write a successful conclusion to its latest F1 saga. A title still eludes Honda and there are expectations – including from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff – that it will try to ensure it exits on a high.
“Honda are doing a good job,”says Horner.“they’re obviously keen to leave Formula 1 in a positive manner. They’ve put in a huge amount of effort, as have our fuel partners – Exxon Mobil have done a great job over the winter as well. The whole team, from top to bottom [has too].”
In 2020, Mercedes made a notable step forward with its engine, driven by its controversial defeats to Ferrari the previous summer.
This pulled it further clear of Honda and the rest, but the Japanese manufacturer’s 2020 engine had an issue with battery deployment running out over a lap, which added to Red Bull’s race pace deficit. If it’s to leave F1 with the ultimate achievement, and Red Bull with reasons to finally put its power problems to bed, Honda must step up before it leaves the stage once again.
RED BULL MUST… BE BETTER EVERYWHERE
Red Bull had cause for optimism even before Verstappen gave it much welcomed momentum and motivation heading into the 2020-21 off-season with his Abu Dhabi walk-off win.
Verstappen had run Mercedes hard before his puncture put him out at Imola, and he was in contention to win the epic race in Turkey before spinning out with what looked like an impatient move on Perez. In the Bahrain GP, he was frustrated to come home just behind Hamilton, and Horner was adamant that Verstappen would have been a factor in the Sakhir GP had he not retired in the first-lap shunt triggered by Charles Leclerc tagging Perez.
But Red Bull is well aware that winning the final race of 2020 provides little genuine indication of the 2021 form book. After all, one of Mercedes’oft-repeated mantras is that it learns most from its defeats. This returns us to Horner’s line from the beginning of this article – if Red Bull is to finally overcome Mercedes, then it simply must be better everywhere. It has the tools, the skills and the determination; now it needs to deliver on its promise.
“Mercedes are a very rounded team, and they’ve been solid for a long time now, and all credit to them for the records that they’ve broken with seven successive championships ,” horn er concludes.
“Mercedes is quite a machine, but we’ve demonstrated that you can beat them – by working hard, by applying yourself to the task in hand. They will be tremendously motivated because of that last race in Abu Dhabi, and I expect that Toto has used that, and James Allison [too], to come up with an even more competitive car for this year. So, we don’t in any way underestimate the might of Mercedes. But we’ve always been a challenger.
“And our objective is to take the lessons that we learned in 2020 into 2021. And hopefully RB16B will be a good evolution. Mercedes are the clear favourites with seven consecutive titles, but we are excited about the challenge this season and won’t give up in our hunt for a fifth title.”
“HONDA ARE DOING A GOOD JOB. THEY’RE OBVIOUSLY KEEN TO LEAVE FORMULA 1 IN A POSITIVE MANNER”