Verstappen on difficult start to season: "We had to put a few things right"

Red Bull Racing started the season as second fiddle behind Mercedes, but slowly but surely the gap was closing. The win in Abu Dhabi will give the team the confidence to start the new season well, but we've said that before.

Turning the tide

With the cars in 2021 largely unchanged from 2020 and Red Bull Racing's form at the end of the season, there is plenty of cause for optimism from Max Verstappen's team. However, it won't be the first time that Red Bull have finished a season well, only to find themselves trailing at the start of the next.

The fact that much remains the same with the car now could turn that tide, according to Christian Horner. "I hope so, of course, because it's not another new start," the Red Bull Racing team boss told Motorsport-Total.com. "It's the first time in the history of Formula 1 that this has happened and that's why we've named the new car 16B, as opposed to 17, because so much of the car is carried over."

Aerodynamics

So while the chassis remains largely the same, there are some changes in aerodynamics. Red Bull has always been very strong in this area, but can sometimes be a little overconfident in introducing new parts. A lot of time on the track for testing is therefore preferred to understand the car as well as possible.

Verstappen also agrees that Red Bull often needs a little more time to get up to speed at the start of a season. "It certainly seems that way." Yet last season there was also another reason. "I think the situation with the corona virus and the lack of track time, which we depend on a lot, didn't help us." The fast pace of the races didn't help either. "We had to put a few things right and then you lose a lot of points with so many races in a row."

Wind tunnel

What Red Bull also had problems with was that what worked in the wind tunnel didn't work on the track. "As I said, I think we are just a little bit more dependent on the time on the track," Verstappen says. "So we have to find a way to make sure that what comes out of the wind tunnel works directly on the car and gets us in the right direction. So we're going to work on that."