Verstappen: RB21 can’t be worse than last year's car

The only reason Verstappen managed to win the 2024 F1 drivers' title was the seven wins he achieved in the first ten races last season, as Red Bull went down the wrong path with the development of their RB20, which made it challenging even for the Dutchman to drive, while his former teammate, Sergio Perez, went off the boil and was let go by the end of the season.

As McLaren improved, Red Bull struggled with the car that became more and more unpredictable until the team had their eureka moment at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, but it was too late by then as they couldn't reverse the damage within the same season.

However, Red Bull appears to have learned the lessons of 2024 and incorporated them in their 2025 single-seater, which is the first in years that was not conceived under the watch of Adrian Newey, their former tech boss, who will start work at Aston Martin in March.

Speaking to the media during the Bahrain pre-season test, Verstappen discussed his new car; he said: "It can’t be worse than last year. So I think the direction that we are working into is good.

"We just need to follow that and see how much we can extract. At the moment, it’s really early days—a lot of things we are still discussing and wanting to improve.

"But yesterday [Thursday] I enjoyed it, and that’s already a big difference to last year," he maintained.

Verstappen previously said that something he noticed in the data of the 2024 Italian Grand Prix helped Red Bull Racing understand what was wrong with the RB20.

Asked how much of an influence he was allowed to have on the development of the RB21, Verstappen said: "Some cars don’t need much influence. For myself and the team, at some point last year we knew something was up.

“Of course a few things have to be addressed, and that’s why quite a few things have changed. So I give my feedback on what I need—the car needs to go faster, and that’s what we try to apply.

"I think the team learned a lot from last year. We tried to solve those problems, and now we have to see how the car performs in Australia, which is another completely different circuit [to Bahrain]," the Red Bull ace concluded.