Red Bull’s Formula 1 Performance Struggles: Why Copying Racing Bulls’ F1 Car Design Won’t Fix the RB21

Dominika Jordan
Aug 6, 2025, 10:15 AM ET

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Red Bull Racing faces surprising struggles in the 2025 F1 season

Red Bull Racing has been one of the most dominant forces in modern Formula 1 history, but the 2025 F1 season has brought a surprising twist — the team is grappling with persistent performance struggles that, in certain races, have seen its junior outfit Racing Bulls F1 team outperform them.

Despite speculation, Red Bull F1 team principal Laurent Mekies has dismissed the idea that the RB21’s issues could be resolved by adopting technology, car setups, or aerodynamic concepts from Racing Bulls. According to Mekies, Formula 1’s strict development rules make such an approach “impractical” in today’s competitive environment.

Racing Bulls outperform Red Bull’s second seat in the 2025 F1 season

Through the first half of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship, Racing Bulls’ drivers have consistently outshone Red Bull’s second driver — whether it has been Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda behind the wheel.

Racing Bulls F1 points tally: 45 points so far in 2025.
Liam Lawson: 0 points in two appearances for Red Bull Racing.
Yuki Tsunoda: Just 7 points in 12 races for Red Bull’s main team.

The performance gap has been stark. The second Red Bull RB21 has been outqualified by at least one Racing Bulls car in nine race weekends this season (excluding sprint qualifying). At the Austrian Grand Prix qualifying, even Max Verstappen was narrowly beaten — missing Lawson’s time by just 0.003 seconds.

The Hungarian Grand Prix was another low point. Verstappen, a four-time F1 World Champion, could only qualify eighth — just ahead of the Racing Bulls — and ultimately finished ninth, trailing Lawson to the chequered flag.

Mekies explains the limits of copying Racing Bulls’ F1 technology

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the Hungarian GP qualifying, Mekies addressed why Red Bull cannot simply transfer Racing Bulls’ F1 developments to its RB21.

“No, I think the question is fair, but there’s a genesis of the car,” Mekies explained. “Where the cars are coming from is too different for anyone to transfer anything from a car to another. It’s what Formula 1 is today.

You know, it’s 10 independent teams all coming with their own ideas about where to develop the car, what difficulties they found along the way, which development paths they have ended up having due to that. And there is nothing you could take from a car to another. It’s really down to how it was developed from early on.”

Max Verstappen’s stability a key asset amid Red Bull’s F1 setbacks

Mekies pointed to Max Verstappen’s nine-year tenure with Red Bull Racing as a vital stabilizing factor during this turbulent season. Their partnership is the third-longest in Formula 1 history, behind only Lewis Hamilton with Mercedes and Michael Schumacher with Ferrari.

“It’s a huge advantage because he knows when the car has been working. He knows when the car has not been working,” Mekies said.

“And especially in a situation like that where it’s not so much a balance issue, it’s really like we are struggling to find the level of grip we should be having here. And he’s certainly been a huge, huge help in these situations.”

The RB21’s narrow setup window and Hungary’s grip struggles

The Hungarian GP weekend exposed the RB21’s limitations from the very first laps of Friday practice. The team struggled to find grip across all speed ranges — slow, medium, and high-speed corners — and failed to get the car into its optimal F1 performance window.

“What I can tell you is that it was there from the first lap in FP1,” Mekies revealed. “We look at each other and we say, what’s going on?

We could see in all the slow-speed, medium-speed [corners], we are just very slow. It was something, we couldn’t say that it was balance-related."

Red Bull engineers tried multiple F1 setup experiments on both RB21 cars over the weekend, but the results were the same — the team couldn’t switch on the tires.

“The good thing is that the guys really went out and tried with both cars different things. It didn’t do any difference; we couldn’t switch on the tires,” Mekies admitted.

What’s next for Red Bull in the 2025 F1 season?

Red Bull’s disappointing performance in Hungary has intensified concerns about their ability to recover performance in the second half of the 2025 Formula 1 calendar. Mekies remains candid about the uphill battle ahead:

“I think today was a lot more than that. Today we were really unable to get the car to run.”

With Racing Bulls occasionally outperforming its senior team, the pressure is mounting for Red Bull Racing to unlock the RB21’s full potential and prevent further losses to rivals in what has become one of their most challenging F1 campaigns in recent memory.