Jump to content

Red Bull Racing RB21

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Red Bull RB21)

Red Bull Racing RB21
Yuki Tsunoda driving the RB21 in a one off livery during the Japanese Grand Prix
CategoryFormula One
ConstructorRed Bull Racing (chassis)
Honda Racing Corporation (power unit)
Designer(s)
  • Pierre Waché (Technical Director)
  • Ben Waterhouse (Chief Engineer, Performance)
  • Paul Monaghan (Chief Engineer, Car Engineering)
  • Craig Skinner (Chief Designer)
  • Jerome Lafrage (Chief Engineer, Composites and Structures)
  • Edward Aveling (Chief Engineer, Mechanical and Systems)
  • Enrico Balbo (Head of Aerodynamics)
PredecessorRed Bull Racing RB20
Technical specifications
Suspension (front)Multi-link pull-rod actuated dampers and anti-roll bar
Suspension (rear)Double wishbone push-rod springs, dampers, and anti-roll bar
EngineHonda RBPTH003[1]
1.6 L (98 cu in) direct injection V6 turbocharged engine limited to 15,000 rpm in a rear mid-mounted, rear-wheel-drive layout
Electric motorHonda Kinetic and thermal energy recovery systems
BatteryHonda Lithium-ion battery
Power1,020 hp (750 kw)
Weight800 kg (including driver, excluding fuel)
FuelEsso / Mobil Synergy
LubricantsMobil 1
TyresPirelli P Zero (Dry)
Pirelli Cinturato (Wet)
Competition history
Notable entrantsOracle Red Bull Racing
Notable drivers
Debut2025 Australian Grand Prix
First win2025 Japanese Grand Prix
Last win2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
RacesWinsPodiumsPolesF/Laps
92431

The Red Bull Racing RB21 is a Formula One car designed and constructed by Red Bull Racing currently competing in the 2025 Formula One World Championship. It is being driven by defending World Champion Max Verstappen, who is joined by Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda, the latter replacing Lawson from the Japanese Grand Prix. The RB21, which is powered by the Honda RBPTH003 power unit, is the last Red Bull Racing car to be powered by Honda RBPT-badged engines; from the 2026 season, Red Bull and its sister team Racing Bulls will utilise Red Bull Powertrains Ford engines.[2]

The RB21 is the first Red Bull Racing car since the RB2 to not be designed by former Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey, and the first car to be designed by Technical Director Pierre Waché who is now overseeing all aspects of any future Red Bull challengers from design to production with the RB21 being the first car for which he oversaw both the design and production process.

Background

[edit]

Livery

[edit]
Max Verstappen driving the Red Bull RB21 at the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix in its special white-and-red Honda livery
The RB21 featured a special white livery imitating the colors of the Honda RA272 at the Japanese Grand Prix, commemorating Red Bull's partnership with Honda.
Main article: Formula One sponsorship liveries: Red Bull Racing

The livery of the car was unveiled at the F1 75 event at The O2 Arena, along with other teams, on 18 February 2025.[3] The livery was similar to previous liveries, but with minor sponsorship changes.

At the Japanese Grand Prix, the RB21 featured a variation of the White Bull designed used at the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix, commemorating the final year of their partnership with Honda.[4] The designed featured a matte white finish with satin red logos, emulating the racing colours of Japan.

Competition and development history of the RB21

[edit]

Red Bull performed 304 laps around Bahrain International Circuit during pre-season testing.[5] Following the testing, Verstappen concluded that, due to the lower average amount of completed laps - being the lowest of the ten teams overall - the team had 'work to do', with Lawson stating there were "teething gremlins" with the new car.[6]

Opening rounds

[edit]
Verstappen and Lawson

Red Bull's driver lineup for the first two races of 2025 consisted of defending champion Max Verstappen, who was paired with rookie Liam Lawson. Lawson previously raced part-time in 2023 and 2024 for two iterations of Red Bull's sister team - Scuderia AlphaTauri and Visa Cash App RB - both times replacing Daniel Ricciardo. Lawson first appeared in Red Bull and AlphaTauri's first free practice sessions starting from the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix.

During qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, title rivals McLaren locked out the front row, with Verstappen having to settle for third. Meanwhile, Lawson was eliminated in Q1, starting eighteenth but moving to the pit lane following setup changes under parc fermé. After Oscar Piastri spun out, Verstappen moved up one spot to finish in second, while Lawson retired due to hitting the same wall where RB debutant Isack Hadjar retired on earlier during the formation lap.[7] The following Chinese Grand Prix was a sprint weekend; Verstappen qualified second, and finished third. Verstappen found himself in fourth in qualifying and when he crossed the line to finish off the podium. Meanwhile, Lawson endured two last-place qualifications in the same weekend, with a pit lane start for the main race, and finished fourteenth in the sprint and fifteenth[8] but becoming twelfth after three[9][10] post-race disqualifications - after which Red Bull opened discussions to replace Lawson.[11]

Verstappen and Tsunoda

During the week leading up to the Japanese Grand Prix, Yuki Tsunoda was announced to be Lawson's replacement, with the latter dropping back to Racing Bulls. However, Tsunoda disappointed on his Red Bull debut and qualified fifteenth and finished twelfth while Verstappen took Red Bull's first pole position and win of the season. Red Bull had a weak Bahrain Grand Prix, with Verstappen qualifying seventh, enduring slow pit stops, and recovering to sixth, and Tsunoda qualifying tenth, striking Carlos Sainz Jr.'s Williams and causing him to retire, and finishing ninth.[12] Verstappen took pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but conceded the lead to Piastri after a move into turn one that exceeded track limits saw him penalised. Meanwhile, Tsunoda qualified seventh, hit another car, this time former AlphaTauri teammate Pierre Gasly now of Alpine, and retired on the opening laps.[13]

Verstappen qualified fourth, and Tsunoda eighteenth, for the Miami Grand Prix sprint.[14] However, Verstappen was unsafely released into Mercedes polesitter Andrea Kimi Antonelli, which netted him a penalty. Due to a safety car intervention after Fernando Alonso was hit by Lawson, which ended as eventual winner Lando Norris crossed the line, Verstappen dropped to last, which marked the first time he failed to score points in any race format since the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix. Having started from the pit lane following further setup changes, Tsunoda finished in sixth.[15] For the main race, Verstappen took pole position and went on to finish fourth. Tsunoda qualified and finished in tenth.[16]

Mid-season rounds

[edit]

The car sported a major upgrade package[17] and special numbers inspired by their earlier liveries for Red Bull Racing's 400th Grand Prix entry, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but a heavy crash between Tsunoda and the wall at turn six destroyed both and ruled him out of qualifying, with him starting from the pit lane following a total rebuild of his RB21.[18] However, Verstappen, who started second, salvaged a win following a move into turn one, with Tsunoda making up ten places to score one point.[19]

Despite being off the pace, with a twelfth-placed Tsunoda exiting early in Q2 and Verstappen qualifying fourth, Red Bull had a clean Monaco Grand Prix.[a] During the first pit stop phase, Verstappen was shuffled into first and led a majority of the race. He and Red Bull banked on a late-stage disruption (either via safety car or red flag) to get his second stop - this time free - out of the way, but it did not come. Due to the new regulation surrounding Monaco's forced two-stop strategy, Verstappen was called to do his second stop on the penultimate lap, releasing a scant Lando Norris into the clean air he needed to shake a chasing Charles Leclerc off his back. Verstappen ended up finishing in fourth, and Tsunoda ended up falling to seventeenth, two laps down.[23]

Tsunoda qualified last at the Spanish Grand Prix, and Verstappen was in third.

Complete Formula One results

[edit]
Key
Key
Colour Result
Gold Winner
Silver Second place
Bronze Third place
Green Other points position
Blue Other classified position
Not classified, finished (NC)
Purple Not classified, retired (Ret)
Red Did not qualify (DNQ)
Black Disqualified (DSQ)
White Did not start (DNS)
Race cancelled (C)
Blank Did not practice (DNP)
Excluded (EX)
Did not arrive (DNA)
Withdrawn (WD)
Did not enter (empty cell)
Annotation Meaning
P Pole position
F Fastest lap
Superscript
number 		Points-scoring position
in sprint
Year Entrant Power unit Tyres Driver name Grands Prix Points WCC pos.
AUS CHN JPN BHR SAU MIA EMI MON ESP CAN AUT GBR BEL HUN NED ITA AZE SIN USA MXC SAP LVG QAT ABU
2025 Red Bull Racing Honda RBPTH003 P Netherlands Max Verstappen 2 43 1P 6 2P 4P 1F 4 143* 3rd*
New Zealand Liam Lawson Ret 12
Japan Yuki Tsunoda 12 9 Ret 106 10 17
Source:

* Season still in progress.

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Compared to Red Bull's last three Monaco Grands Prix, where a car of theirs has had an incident in a session: 2022[20] 2023[21] 2024[22]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Honda RBPTH003". Honda Racing. 15 February 2024. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  2. ^ "Ford announces F1 return in 2026 with Red Bull". ESPN.com. 3 February 2023. Archived from the original on 5 February 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  3. ^ O2, The. "F1® 75 Live". www.theo2.co.uk. Retrieved 12 February 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "GALLERY: Red Bull unveil special white and red livery for Japanese Grand Prix". Formula One. 1 April 2025. Retrieved 4 April 2025.
  5. ^ "IN NUMBERS: Who was the fastest and who recorded the most laps at Bahrain's 2025 pre-season test?". Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  6. ^ "Verstappen admits Red Bull have 'work to do' as pre-season testing concludes". {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. ^ "Norris beats Verstappen to victory in dramatic Australian GP opener amid late-race chaos". Formula One. 16 March 2025.
  8. ^ "Piastri beats Norris and Russell to victory in Chinese Grand Prix with statement performance". Formula 1.com. 23 March 2025. Retrieved 23 March 2025.
  9. ^ "Leclerc and Gasly disqualified from Chinese Grand Prix over car weight breaches". Formula 1.com. 23 March 2025. Retrieved 23 March 2025.
  10. ^ "Hamilton disqualified from Chinese GP after skid block breach as Ferrari suffer double disqualification". Formula 1.com. 23 March 2025. Retrieved 23 March 2025.
  11. ^ Karpov, Oleg; de Celis, Jose Carlos (23 March 2025). "Red Bull considers immediate swap of Lawson and Tsunoda for Japanese GP". Autosport. Motorsport Network. ISSN 0269-946X. Archived from the original on 23 March 2025. Retrieved 23 March 2025.
  12. ^ "Piastri storms to controlled victory in Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Russell and Norris". Formula 1.com. 13 April 2025. Retrieved 13 April 2025.
  13. ^ "Piastri clinches victory in Saudi Arabia from Verstappen and Leclerc as McLaren driver becomes new championship leader". Formula 1.com. 20 April 2025. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  14. ^ "Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2025 – Sprint Grid". Formula1.com. 2 May 2025. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  15. ^ Golding, Nick (3 May 2025). "Charles Leclerc crashes out before Sprint as heavy rain causes chaos". RacingNews365.
  16. ^ "Piastri wins from Norris and Russell as McLaren seal commanding 1-2 in Miami Grand Prix". Formula 1.com. 5 May 2025.
  17. ^ Giuliana, Rosario (22 May 2025). "Red Bull's real 2025 F1 car seems to have now arrived". The Race. Retrieved 27 May 2025. Miami Upgrades - Red Bull brought a new floor, fitted only to Verstappen's car, a clear sign of a testing and data collection phase. At first glance, the changes seemed rather restrained and inconspicuous, but in reality every area of the floor underwent minimal retouches to improve flows. Even the venturi inlet area was updated with a different disposition of the innermost fence, an area that is always very delicate to touch up.

    Emilia Romagna Upgrades - Here the intervention was more radical and visible, with a substantial change to the side belly pan inlets. Red Bull abandoned the 'shark-mouth' solution, which had characterised its cars since the beginning of 2024, and which had been copied by many teams. The new solution brought to Italy has geometry more similar to that seen on the Ferrari SF-25 and McLaren MCL39, a sign that the direction of development to be taken is there.
  18. ^ "Piastri beats Verstappen and Russell to pole in dramatic Imola Qualifying session". Formula 1.com. 17 May 2025. Retrieved 17 May 2025.
  19. ^ Collantine, Keith (18 May 2025). "As it happened: 2025 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix". RaceFans. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  20. ^ Wellens, Megan (28 May 2022). "Monaco GP: Sergio Perez 'very sorry' for crash and fears damage | Carlos Sainz: I couldn't avoid him". Sky Sports. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  21. ^ Cleeren, Filip; Cooper, Adam (27 May 2023). "Perez: "I cannot believe what I've done" in Monaco F1 qualifying crash". Motorsport.com. Retrieved 11 December 2024.
  22. ^ Collantine, Keith (27 May 2024). "The details revealed by fans' videos of Perez and Magnussen's Monaco GP crash". RaceFans. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  23. ^ "Norris takes victory over Leclerc and Piastri in gripping Monaco Grand Prix". Formula1.com. 25 May 2025. Retrieved 25 May 2025.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Bull_Racing_RB21&oldid=1293236732"