Red Bull has admitted that it is "not confident" about its chances in F1 next year, despite Max Verstappen wrapping up his fourth world championship in Las Vegas.
In the wake of a major threat from McLaren's Lando Norris in a run of races after the summer break, Red Bull and Verstappen managed to get to the bottom of troubles with their RB20 to unlock the pace needed to turn the tables in recent races.
A stunning performance from Verstappen in the wet Brazilian Grand Prix set the stage for him to secure the title in Las Vegas last weekend, despite finishing behind Mercedes and Ferrari.
But while Red Bull overcame even its own doubts to win the drivers' title this year, the team thinks that its prospects for 2025 are not great – especially because its success this year was helped by its strong start to the campaign.
Asked if the steps made with the RB20 had left Red Bull more optimistic for next year, technical director Pierre Wache said: "I think we are happy with what we have done quickly.
"I'm not confident for '25. I'm not confident because I think the others are very quick or are there. It will be a fight for the full year."
However, Wache sees his lack of optimism as a potential strength, because his downbeat assessment will force the team to dig deeper and find extra potential with its RB21.
"If you have confidence in this business, you are dead," he said. "You have to work hard, and everybody has to, in the team, work hard. Everybody's working hard.
"When you see the number of people we have trying to find a very small amount of performance and add and add and add everywhere, it is a very difficult task.
"I have a lack of confidence, because if I have confidence, you go to sleep, you don't go to work, and then you don't find performance."
Unexpected early dominance
Wache suggested that Red Bull's dominance in recent seasons had caused some surprise, because it had anticipated rivals being much closer – as it never felt it had unleashed anything special with its car.
"What happened this year in terms of fighting is what we expected in 2023, to be honest," he said. "In '22, we didn't start the season with the quickest car as Ferrari's start [was strong].
"So then we expected the fight in '23 but it didn't happen. And in '24, from the beginning of the season, it also didn't happen! That I cannot explain.
"It's not like if we did a better job. This [was] more the others did a bad job during certain periods. McLaren started late on this season. And it's not our fault.
"The car was not massively different. In absolute terms, it stays the same. But we have to improve the performance of the car, because the others are quicker."
Monza trigger
While Red Bull faced a particularly difficult middle phase of this campaign, as McLaren tried to make the most of its performance advantage, Wache thinks the breakthrough came at its most difficult moment.
That was at the Italian Grand Prix, when the team thinks a lack of pace in low-downforce conditions actually helped deliver some answers about what was not working with the RB20.
"I think clearly Monza was a key point and a wake-up point on our side," he said. "It highlighted some issue on the car that we didn't see before... or we saw, but we suspected and guessed.
"What is impressive is more how the team reacted to fix or to help this problem and to reduce it. And in Austin already, we brought something. And I think even Max said that the car came together better."
One aspect that Wache feels Red Bull needs to definitely do better on is having a car that is quicker across a wider range of circuits.
Asked for the target for 2025, he said: "Clearly, to have a decent car in multiple types of track. I think on this type of track [like in Vegas], we are not nice. So improving the low-speed [corners] and straightline speed is one of our goals."
And one specific design aspect that needs a rethink is the team's approach to rear wing philosophy – with its choice to steer clear of an ultra-low-downforce specification leaving it exposed in Monza and Vegas this year.
"I think it's something to think [about]," added Wache. "Maybe we didn't do it for multiple reasons, like budget and time. When you do the rear wing, you don't do something else.
"It's clear that maybe it was a mistake. That's something we have to assess. We have to find a rear wing that is better than what we have. It's also not an easy task, but I think it's clear that it is something we will study, as we dismissed it this year and last year."
