F1 uncovered: Red Bull still developing the RB21 to unlock its full potential

Matthew Somerfield 27 Oct 2025 4:00 PM

Red Bull continued to exert pressure on its rivals, as the team introduced another batch of updates at the Mexican Grand Prix, in order to assist Max Verstappen’s in his quest to overturn his championship rivals’ points tally in the closing stages of the season.

And, whilst the package, like most of the updates seen elsewhere up and down the grid, included some adjustments to help deal with the temperatures and altitude at which the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is situated, Red Bull also had a new floor and sidepod bodywork at their disposal.

Red Bull’s big push

At this late stage in the season you could be mistaken for thinking that this update is relatively small too, with more of an iterative process taken but, whilst the overall concepts remain similar, it’s a little bolder than that.

The work that’s been undertaken comprises adjustments to the floor and sidepod interface, which according to the team is not entirely new, rather it’s been recycled, in order to reduce the lead time of manufacturing an entirely new assembly.

“It’s a ‘make from’, so it’s a previous floor that we’ve managed to recycle, as it was sufficiently modular to get it here”, said Paul Monaghan, Chief Engineer.

He went on to clarify that “The redistribution of cooling exits was found when we went through the last iteration of the top body and we thought, Oh, we’ve missed that one. We can get it in here, though, and some magical work in Milton Keynes, and it’s here. So all credit to everybody that pitched in and got that done”.

This means that whilst there’s obviously some additional changes having been made to the bodywork, the modularity of the original floor and bodywork build has allowed them to justify the resource expense of studying and developing new design architecture that mates to it, without having all the costs and lead time associated with an entirely new assembly.

It’s a clever short cut, of sorts, but one born out of the team not having to find new and hugely resource hungry solutions this late in a regulation cycle, especially as it’ll have little to no carry over for the 2026 project.

Instead, they’ve been able to refine the concept and pick some of the low-hanging fruit from the underlying performance that appears to have been within the RB21 but couldn’t be unlocked earlier in the season.

The changes that have been made externally in the interface between the floor and sidepods can be seen in the comparison, with the dotted line (below) acting as a reference. But, whilst the G-line is clearly different here, it’s also worthwhile noting how much of a difference this has on the sidepod bodywork above it.

This may also act as a good visual tool for understanding how the underfloor geometry that’s out of sight might also have been affected.

There’s also been some interesting changes made to the edge wing too (circled), especially in the forward section.

The horizontal flap and stacked vane arrangement, that’s been used for a while by Red Bull and assimilated by others, has been exchanged for a more traditionally arched and swept section that’s furnished with two vanes in series with one another. Notably though, these vanes are more steeply pitched than the ones at the rear of the section.

It’s also worth noting that whilst Yuki Tsunoda was brought up to speed with Max Verstappen in terms of the front wing and nose arrangement that’s been on the Dutchman’s RB21 the last few races, the Japanese driver didn’t have the new floor at his disposal in Mexico.

Meanwhile, in order to keep temperatures under control both drivers had the new, cooling louvre arrangement on the side of their engine covers.

As seen in the upper image it’s a two-stage affair, with a smaller three louvre opening in front of the more expansive rear opening, which had also had the louvre configuration adjusted to better suit the demands of the circuit.