Can Red Bull carry its surprise pace into Baku?

When Max Verstappen stated again in Hungary that he didn’t anticipate Pink Bull to win one other grand prix for the rest of the 2025 season, actuality turned out in another way. The Dutchman gained in Monza, and did so in dominant trend. Verstappen constructed a lead of just about 20 seconds, though Lando Norris jokingly stated throughout the post-race press convention: “It was 19, no? I simply don’t need any misinformation!”

On a extra critical observe, Verstappen and Pink Bull’s superior tempo at Monza got here as a shock to many within the paddock, together with McLaren. It raises the query: how a lot of it was Monza-specific, and the way a lot of that efficiency offers Verstappen hope for the races to come back?

“You do numerous issues just for Monza. You do wings just for Monza, you do set-up just for Monza, so final 12 months was a really troublesome level and the blokes did a tremendous job analysing final 12 months and coming right here with very particular options,” replied Pink Bull staff principal Laurent Mekies. “So to reply your query, tonight we in all probability assume that numerous it’s Monza-specific, however we’ll discover out in Baku how a lot of the learnings with the brand new parts we had [floor] and with the way in which we ran the automobile may be transferred to different tracks.”

Mekies instantly touched on two essential factors. Relating to the automobile itself, a part of the standout efficiency was certainly track-specific. Not solely did Pink Bull have a much-improved low-downforce bundle – in contrast to final 12 months – however the RB21 typically performs higher on tracks like Monza. It’s a view Verstappen shares: “I feel it is nonetheless a bit monitor dependent. In Monza you drive low downforce. It looks as if our automobile is a little more aggressive when it’s low-downforce to medium-downforce. It isn’t that abruptly we’re again, and it isn’t like we are able to battle each single weekend now.”

That stated, it ought to be famous that Baku, with its lengthy straights, would possibly swimsuit Pink Bull pretty properly. The road circuit in Azerbaijan is a little bit of a combined bag for the staff. The lengthy full-throttle sections ought to play to the RB21’s strengths, however Verstappen has repeatedly said that road circuits and bumps stay two main weaknesses. Baku has each positives and negatives for Pink Bull – although total, it ought to nonetheless be an affordable match. So it’s no coincidence that Helmut Marko, even earlier than the Italian GP, named Baku as a possible likelihood to win. The actual take a look at will observe afterwards in Singapore, a monitor that theoretically fits the RB21 a lot much less.

Can Pink Bull apply the Monza classes in Baku?

The opposite side Mekies referred to was how Pink Bull “ran the automobile” in Monza. It hyperlinks again to what the staff has described as a “new philosophy” throughout the Italian GP weekend, one which Pink Bull hopes to hold ahead into Baku and past.

“The constructive is that we appear to grasp a bit extra what we have to do with the automobile to be extra aggressive. So I hope that carries on into the upcoming rounds as properly, though some tracks might be a bit higher than others,” Verstappen confirmed.

That understanding pertains to what Marko defined in Monza: at instances relying much less on the simulator, and as an alternative giving better weight to driver suggestions. “Our strategy is now: no matter what the simulator tells us, we combine that with Max’s expertise and the expertise of our engineers,” stated the 82-year-old Austrian. “The entire technical staff is now far more open and discusses issues collectively. They now not blindly observe what the simulator says.”

Pierre Wache nonetheless performs an essential position within the technical staff that Marko talked about, being the staff’s technical director. The Frenchman additionally acknowledges that Pink Bull’s strategy to automobile set-up has modified barely after the summer season break.

“It has given us a unique path of organising the automobile. We already discovered that path in Zandvoort, however that was nonetheless a really completely different stage of downforce, a stage that’s not so good for us. In Monza, now we have optimised it additional, and I feel we are going to see if it really works on different tracks as properly.” Requested whether or not which means relying much less on the simulation instruments going ahead, Wache replied: “Properly, we nonetheless use all of the instruments at our disposal, however with the constraints in thoughts.”

If Pink Bull can discover the working window of the RB21 at different venues as properly, the staff has good hope to be extra aggressive – despite the fact that Wache doesn’t anticipate a repeat of Monza: “Clearly, they [McLaren] are very fast. And they’re all the time there. However in comparison with final 12 months it was not less than essential for us to bounce again. Final 12 months we struggled massively in Monza.”

The struggles in Baku had been much less extreme than in Monza. Sergio Perez was in podium competition till his late contact with Carlos Sainz, throughout a race that marked the second win of Oscar Piastri’s Components 1 profession and absolutely reignited the flexi-wings debate within the paddock.

Sergio Perez, Pink Bull Racing RB20

Photograph by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Photos

With final 12 months’s efficiency in thoughts, plus the marginally adjusted strategy, Marko is cautiously constructive forward of subsequent weekend: “For Baku and people quick circuits, I am very optimistic. Singapore is the one race we have not gained up to now, and usually it’s a bit tougher for us on gradual circuits. However I consider that the whole lot is feasible now in this time period.”

Above all, Pink Bull hopes that the teachings from Zandvoort and Monza will assist to seek out the RB21’s preferrred set-up window extra typically – regardless of how small which may be. If the staff can hit the candy spot of the automobile, the RB21 won’t all the time be as poor as has lengthy been feared, additionally internally.

Whether or not that interprets into extra success on monitor, nonetheless relies on the kind of monitor and on McLaren, but it surely might not less than enable Pink Bull to be an element often. Not essentially in Monza-style dominance, however heading in the right direction, one other standout result’s removed from inconceivable – regardless of Verstappen’s pessimistic prediction heading into the summer season break.