Verstappen’s dominant start to the F1 2024 season gave way to struggling for victories through the mid-season, with the Milton Keynes-based squad concentrating on improving the feel of what had become a troublesome car for their new RB21.
With Red Bull’s aim over the winter being on rectifying the issues encountered last season, all eyes were on Red Bull on the first day of pre-season testing in Bahrain to see what solution the team has rolled out for this year.
With the choice being to stick with the core concept of the RB20, perhaps underlining the fundamental strength of the design path embarked on by the team last season, the RB21 appears visually very similar to its troublesome predecessor.
But Verstappen, who voiced his criticisms of the RB20 during the height of the car’s struggles last season, has revealed that the new car is handling in a much more pleasing way at this early stage of testing in Bahrain.
Finishing in third on Wednesday, a quarter of a second down on Lando Norris’ time but having run slightly wide through Sector 2 on that run, Verstappen said he’s enjoying the driving.
“The car was quite decent to drive, to be honest,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com, in the F1 press conference in Bahrain.
“In terms of pace, it’s always difficult to say, but I enjoyed it. I guess that’s the most important part of it. It was a bit more predictable.
“But, around this time last year, also around here, it wasn’t that bad, but I do think that the team learned a lot from last year.
“So now we just try to address that from last year and see how it goes when we go to Australia as well, a completely different track. But so far, I’ve been enjoying it.”
As for whether the car’s balance, a critical issue last year, is giving him the confidence to drive as he pleases, Verstappen said, “It can’t be worse than last year, so I think the direction that we are working in is good, so we just need to follow that and see how much we can extract out of that.
“But, at the moment, it’s really early days so a lot of things that we are still discussing and wanting to improve but yesterday, I enjoyed it and that’s already a big difference to last year.”
Given the drivability issues encountered by Red Bull last season, as the team struggled to tame a reluctant RB20 that could be very quick when nailed into the correct operating window, Verstappen was reluctant to reveal too much about how the feeling of the car has improved under him.
“Everywhere, it’s just improved everywhere compared to last year. I don’t want to go too much in detail,” he said.
“It’s not necessary, we keep that for ourselves, but, yeah, let’s see. I mean, I’ve done half a day, so there’s a lot to still analyse also, but it’s positive.”
As a vocal critic of RB20, the four-time F1 World Champion was asked as to the extent of the influence he’s had on the development direction of the RB21 and how much input he had into critical design decision.
“Some cars, of course, they don’t need much influence, and you try to just continue the work,” he said.
“For myself and the team, of course, at some point last year, we knew that something was up… a few things had to be addressed.
“Quite a few things have changed. So I give my feedback on what I think the car needs to go faster, and that’s what we tried to apply to it, to be honest.”
