Explained: The key to Red Bull’s F1 2025 revival as ‘real test’ awaits

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has shed some light on the team turning around their 2025 F1 season.

Red Bull is riding a wave of new-found momentum after Max Verstappen won back-to-back races in dominant style at the Italian and Azerbaijan grands prix.

Having endured a challenging campaign dogged with issues that have plagued the RB21, Red Bull appear to have unlocked a more consistent operating window that has enabled Verstappen to extract more performance and return to winning ways.

Additionally, teammate Yuki Tsunoda has made an encouraging breakthrough by picking up his best result of the year with sixth place in Baku.

But what has been the key to Red Bull’s recent resurgence?

“We brought a new floor, it looks like it's working,” Wache explained to the F1 Nation podcast.

“Maybe also some setup arrangement with this new floor that gives us a possibility. It looks like we are more competitive again at a low-downforce track.”

However, Wache cautioned that the upcoming Singapore Grand Prix will be “the real test” to see whether Red Bull have truly cracked their 2025 car.

“We will see in Singapore where we are,” he added. “That is not normally our type of track. It will be the real test.

“If we are competitive there and we don’t lose too much ground, then we sort out our problem.”

Asked if anything has changed in the way Verstappen reacts with the technical team, Wache joked: “It’s clear that he interacts with Laurent [Mekies] more than before when he was at the other team!

“With me, not. We interact in the same way with the engineering office. It’s just the car is working better and the snowball effect of it is bringing more and more performance, even more when the driver is happy with the car.

“It looks like at the moment, with what we’ve found, it gives us even more the possibility to optimise the set-up.”

Is Max Verstappen in the hunt for the drivers’ title?

Wache said it is too early to say with confidence that Verstappen is now back in championship contention, having closed the gap to the McLaren duo with consecutive victories.

"I don't know [about] that. It’s race by race and you have to realise that is so difficult to win a race, so difficult to win this competition,” Wache said.

“We won two races in a row, it’s too quick to say that we are in contention. Our focus is to make the car as quick as possible.

“The main focus is also to beat Ferrari and Mercedes in the constructors’ championship.”

Verstappen has not ruled out challenging for the championship.

"Seven races to go and it's still 69 points? It's a lot,” the Dutchman acknowledged.

"But basically everything needs to go perfect from my side. And then a bit of luck from there from their [McLaren] side I need as well, you know, so it's still very tough.

"So I personally don't think about it. I just go race by race, what I have been doing basically the whole season - just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. And then after Abu Dhabi, we'll know."