Even when Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda completed 1-2 in each remaining grand prix and dash spherical of the 2025 Method 1 season, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris failing to complete, Pink Bull nonetheless couldn't overhaul McLaren within the constructors' championship. However Verstappen nonetheless has an opportunity, albeit slim, of seizing the drivers' title.
To that finish, Pink Bull has continued to carry developments to the RB21, together with a brand new entrance wing geometry in Singapore, earlier than pivoting fully to the all-new automobile required for 2026. Solely Verstappen has the brand new design this weekend.
“The automobile is best,” Pink Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan advised chosen media together with Autosport within the FIA's necessary ‘present and inform' tech briefing in Singapore.
“Now the query is, can we problem the earlier order from the high-downforce circuits and see if we will win? We'll have a go, see how we get on. It must be a bit higher. The query is, how a lot?”
Though Verstappen's back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku would possibly counsel the development line for efficiency has shifted dramatically upwards, these have been each low-downforce circuits which masked a few of the RB21's perceived shortcomings. Circuits requiring increased downforce – similar to Singapore – have ruthlessly uncovered Pink Bull's issues with drag effectivity, one thing the staff skilled with the RB20 and tried to dial out of the RB21 – unsuccessfully at first.
At high-downforce tracks Pink Bull's automobile has been draggier and fewer secure than its McLaren rival, struggling unpredictable shifts of steadiness by way of the completely different phases of cornering at excessive speeds. The staff's focus all through this season has been to realize, as shortly as potential and with out compromising 2026 improvement, the targets it had really set for the start of the 12 months.
Max Verstappen, Pink Bull Racing
Picture by: Mohd Rasfan – AFP – Getty Pictures
A brand new flooring launched at Silverstone, adopted by one other package deal added at Belgium which included a brand new entrance wing in addition to revisions to the sidepods, opened up new avenues of improvement which might be achieved comparatively cheaply and rushed by way of manufacturing earlier than the 2026 venture started occupying manufacturing capability.
The brand new flooring for Monza was the final big-ticket merchandise with an extended lead time. What we're seeing now was probably signed off instantly after the summer time break, when the staff revised its high-downforce entrance wing for Zandvoort.
Because the entrance wing is a visual space of the automobile, Pink Bull has to elucidate the aim of the change within the FIA technical doc circulated forward of the occasion. It described the brand new geometry as “taking additional analysis to extend the camber of some wing sections to extract extra load while sustaining circulate stability”.
“We hope to extract a bit extra lap time from it,” defined Monaghan. “It is fairly a delicate revision. “However because the final one was launched [for Zandvoort], extra proof grew to become clear: ‘Oh, we may do that and we may do this.'
“Just a little little bit of capability is accessible, so we have gone forward and pushed the button and mentioned, ‘Yeah, we'll carry that.' It must be the final one for this 12 months. There could be some flap trims for Vegas or one thing like that, as standard. However in any other case, yeah, it is somewhat little bit of efficiency, and a few nice work within the manufacturing unit, and we have got it right here.
“The manufacturing group is in a little bit of a, not a holding sample, however the 2026 automobile has not but swamped them, so there's somewhat window to say we may do that, and – good work from them – they have on and achieved it.”
Max Verstappen, Pink Bull Racing
Picture by: Zak Mauger / LAT Pictures through Getty Pictures
Since there can be no extra new parts other than circuit-specific trims, the onus is now on the trackside staff to extract the utmost from the most recent package deal. Verstappen's curiosity within the present season has been reinvigorated by his wins in Monza and Baku however the staff should maintain that momentum.
Singapore is the one venue the place Verstappen has by no means received. The query is whether or not the delicate enhancements the most recent updates have been yielding will add as much as Pink Bull being extra aggressive right here; it should do higher than it did in Zandvoort, the final high-downforce monitor on the calendar, the place Verstappen had no reply to the race tempo of the 2 McLarens.
“I believe it would give us a pleasant confidence enhance, maybe somewhat little bit of a therapeutic massage, let's say, if we go very well right here,” mentioned Monaghan. “But when we do not, then we're not going to simply hand over and go to Austin as if we're not going to do something. We are going to go to Austin as if we will attempt to win that race as nicely.
“All types can occur right here – you may go to Flip 1 and get punted out. Bear in mind the footage of Seb [Vettel] arriving there with a few Ferraris [in 2017] and it is chaos, is not it?
“I believe we'll do our greatest right here, we'll extract what we will from the automobile, Max and Yuki will do their bit, and Austin is 2 weeks away and we'll strategy it in the identical method. We'll simply attempt to win it and see what occurs.”
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