Red Bull director drops a reality check as he addresses aspirations of a wider working window

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has dropped a reality check on claims and aspirations of the team to build a car with a wider working window. He insisted that this could decrease the overall potential.

The 2024 F1 season was an intriguing one as the Austrian team found itself stuck in a situation where the car had balance issues due to the upgrades that had been brought.

The 2024 F1 season had started with a bang as Max Verstappen made use of the advantage that Red Bull still had over the competition and went on a dominant run. The run continued until the race in Miami, where McLaren made a big jump and closed the gap to the Austrian team.

From that point onwards, it became clear that whatever Red Bull had brought to the car, it reduced the operating window and hurt the team if the car was not in that specific range. While Max Verstappen did seal the title in 2024, this weakness almost cost the team both titles.

For 2025, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have addressed the concern and feel that if the team brings the car with a better working range, it could help improve the competitiveness.

Talking to Motorsport.com, Pierre Wache, however, said that such a thing could be counterproductive to the overall potential of the car, and hence a happy balance has to be found in this car. He told Motorsport.com (via Planet F1):

"As a dream you want that, of course, but you know that the overall potential decreases if you increase the window. If you look at the cars of other teams and how they lie, they are all insanely stiff. What you want is to produce the fastest car, but it’s not the case that a car is slow because the window in which it works is small."

He added:

“What you want is to be in the right window for every circuit, so that you can anticipate that. If you can achieve that, why would you want to increase the window and flatten the overall potential of a car? You want the fastest car compared to the others. I will not let the overall potential diminish to make it operationally easier. You can lower the potential to help drivers so that they can use the car, but not to help engineers use the car.”

Red Bull focused on finding the balance of the car

Pierre Wache felt that the major hindrance for the drivers during the 2024 F1 season was the fact that the Red Bull struggled massively with balance issues. That's where Max Verstappen lost a lot of feeling with the car and ultimately struggled to get the results.

Talking about how the biggest challenge was finding the right balance with the car to add to the performance, Wache told the aforementioned publication:

“The most important thing is that you are always looking for ways to make the car faster and at the same time make sure that drivers can get the most out of it. In 2023, we proved that our direction was correct, as we were faster than the others. The past year has taught us that we were not correct then. It is always about finding a balance between the balance of a car and its overall potential. We have to solve that issue before next season.”

The 2025 F1 season could be a litmus test for Red Bull's key personnel like Pierre Wache because this would be the first year since Adrian Newey has not been a part of the team. How much of an impact his departure would have will become clear as the season progresses.