Why does Red Bull's RB21 look the same as its predecessor?

Follow live text coverage of the Bahrain pre-season test here.

Typically, Red Bull's official launch images offered very little insight into the key aerodynamic details of its new RB21 Formula 1 car - and are we really surprised that a team, for two years straight, presented F1's new-generation sample car as its new charge continued to be obtuse?

Evidently, last year's masquerading of the RB20's finer points with lighting and shadow was appreciated in Red Bull Towers - and thus we had a similar 'artistic direction' this year.

Not that really mattered, as the RB21 properly broke cover in a shakedown the day before Bahrain's pre-season test opened for business. Everybody with a keen eye, and we like to think we're included within that, has been staring at the new Red Bull in an effort to decipher what's visibly different and understand the decisions taken with the new car.

Instead, there really is very little to talk about; the car as we see it in Bahrain testing is effectively in an equivalent spec to where the RB20 left off at Abu Dhabi last year.

This was the iteration of the RB20 which dispensed with the cannon outlets that lined the engine cover, following the mid-season switch to a tighter bodywork package around the rear of the car. The team developed late into the season, particularly after it determined that its development path after the Italian Grand Prix was ultimately flawed. We know that the team changed course after that with the RB20, but we should surmise that this also affected the direction for 2025.

So what's going on? There's three schools of thought here that could have influenced Red Bull's decision to stick with the familiar in Bahrain - let's run through them.

There's more to come in Australia - or even later in the test

Similar to what has happened in the past, Red Bull's car may look different come the season-opening Australian GP

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Gamesmanship is always afoot in testing, and Red Bull has been known to enjoy toying with its rivals' expectations throughout its time in F1.

Ultimately, the important part of pre-season testing is to put up a working car on the opening day and hoover up data on the redefined 2025 tyre compounds and get the team working together again after a winter away. Performance runs are, largely, ancillary to this.

Assuming the monocoque itself has received minimal changes during the off-season, then it makes sense to get the car bedded in with a known specification to provide a baseline. That affords the team a chance to trial new aero parts at a later date, be it in the Melbourne opener or even on the second or third days in the test.

With many of the 2025 cars being rooted in last year's designs, given the focus is understandably on 2026's revolution, the team was perhaps unwilling to change the fundamental concept of the car

In that regard, it's a rare opportunity - one only achievable if the tub is the same - to back-to-back older and newer specs with a winter's worth of testing... in theory, at least.

There's previous for this in testing; in 2019, Mercedes rocked up at the first week of Barcelona testing with a launch version of its W10, and then ran in the second week with an entirely different aero package. It did a similar trick in 2022 with its shakedown-spec car displaying conventional sidepods, but rocked up in Barcelona with the zero-pod concept that turned most heads in the paddock.

Is Red Bull planning to unleash something different at a later date? We wait with bated breath...

No visible changes - could the underbody hold the key?

Red Bull may have actually made vast changes, it's just that they are not easily spotted

Photo by: Ronald Vording

Given that many have gravitated towards Red Bull-influenced designs for its upper surface aerodynamics, perhaps the team feels that there's minimal juice to squeeze from the front-facing aspects of the car under the current rules.

With many of the 2025 cars being rooted in last year's designs, given the focus is understandably on 2026's revolution, the team was perhaps unwilling to change the fundamental concept of the car - but there's always the scope to have given its floor a different treatment.

After all, making sure the Venturi tunnels work effectively and efficiently to generate downforce is the greatest factor with these cars. In that case, verifying the merits of a new floor would require exploration with set-up options in order to determine the optimal ride heights, with the intent of running it low to the ground.

One of the areas that Red Bull struggled to capitalise on over 2024 was with any attempts to jump on the flexing front wing train, as this was mooted as one of the reasons why it struggled with balance over the early second half of the year.

The extent at which the wings are allowed to flex will be clamped down at the Spanish Grand Prix and beyond, but perhaps the team has felt it worth the effort of exploring that vein of development for the opening portion of the season. 

Producing a wing that flexes a little more doesn't change much visually, but choosing to explore the effect of that in conjunction with a revised floor might explain the relative paucity of evident changes to the car.

The RB21 is just a debugged RB20 - with full focus on 2026

It's possible that Red Bull is actually just sacrificing 2025 development to nail the new rules era in 2026

Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images

The mid-season exposed Red Bull's bigger flaws, in that it was very difficult to dial the RB20 into a balance window conducive to performing at a wider range of circuits; slow-speed venues appeared to be the biggest bugbear.

Further to that, the extreme high-speed venues also yielded some difficulties, and the team notably didn't even have a Monza-spec rear wing given its decision not to spend resources on developing one.

Thus, it would be reasonable to surmise that the development work - if what we see in Bahrain is indeed the RB21 - has been focused on filling in the cracks that formed over the course of last year.

Red Bull probably figured that it just wasn't worth pulling money and wind tunnel time out of its 2026 project to try to match the likes of McLaren and Ferrari

By the end of the season, Max Verstappen was generally pleased with the overall balance of the car after a difficult middle period, and so perhaps it felt that it was in a good enough position to refine everything and add a few more weapons into its arsenal for the more extreme ends of the downforce spectrum.

But the ultimate goal is to be competitive in 2026, particularly as the team has a new challenge of developing its own powertrains and marrying that with its own take on the new aerodynamic regulations. And if a team knows that it is in danger of over-extending and taking resources away from 2026 to try to win in 2025, then there's minimal point in doing so as that development becomes obsolete by the end of this year.

In this scenario, Red Bull probably figured that it just wasn't worth pulling money and wind tunnel time out of its 2026 project to try to match the likes of McLaren and Ferrari, who have invested heavily in renewing their car concepts for this year. Shades of 2008-09, perhaps?

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What is the reason behind Red Bull sticking with the familiar?

Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images