Racing Bulls introduces deceptively large Imola F1 upgrades

The Racing Bulls Formula 1 team is bringing a large upgrade package to this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix – but the possible gains look set to be smaller than they might seem.

For its home race, the squad has prepared a new floor and bodywork which it worked on until the last minute before transporting the cars for the short drive from Faenza to Imola.

The package presents Racing Bulls’ first proper upgrade of the 2025 season on a weekend which will see the majority of the grid roll out new parts.

The floor and bodywork are the two biggest aerodynamic surfaces on the car, with the former particularly crucial to the overall performance.

However, while the upgrades sound huge on paper, the squad has been cautious not to change too much on the car at once, taking on board last year’s hard lessons when a significant Barcelona upgrade actually made the VCARB 01 slower.

“It’s probably fair to say that it’s the first upgrade of the car,” team principal Laurent Mekies said as he sat down with Motorsport.com at its Faenza headquarters.

“If you judge an update by the volume of the parts, it’s a lot of data, but the reality is very different. The reality that is a small step.

“We have learned the hard way last year that these cars are very easy to break in terms of development and in terms of aerodynamic performance, and the relation between aerodynamic and vehicle dynamics or handling. So, we are very, very cautious with the way we are upgrading the car.”

At this late stage of the current rules cycle, the new components are unlikely to bring life-changing benefits.

But they don’t necessarily have to, as in the tightest ever midfield grid, one or two tenths can be the difference between a spot in Q1 or Q3 on Saturday.

Over the first six race weekends Racing Bulls has found itself on both sides on the midfield equation, scoring seven points across the China and Japan weekends, while only adding one point to that tally since then in Saudi Arabia, which is keeping it down in eighth.

“There is no large step anymore, not in our world and I hope not for the other guys either,” Mekies grinned.

“It’s all small steps. And the first of these small steps will be introduced in Imola, there will be then a few more smaller steps coming from now to race seven, eight, nine, 10 and then I think the flow will naturally slow down after that.

“Going step by step is the only way you are going to have some sort of confidence that you are not breaking everything. On the other side, you can see every week that a tenth is the difference between P12 and P6 in qualifying.

“It’s a conflicting motive. You are dying for that next step, but if you go too far, you are going to break it and it’s going to hurt.”

Mekies identified the Spanish GP as the key weekend to assess whether it is worth pushing on further with 2025 or switching its full focus to 2026, with the latest clampdown on flexing front wings having the potential to further affect the pecking order.

“I suppose everybody wants to see the Barcelona situation,” he said of the Spanish GP, which takes place on 1 June.

“We will regroup after Barcelona, assess where our performance is, assess what the potential is that we can still extract from the current car concept, and try to balance that versus the rate of improvement for 2026.

“The bias at the moment is still on ’25 but we will assess after Barcelona how we need to alter that, and I don’t think it’s very different to most teams.”

Photos from Emilia Romagna GP – Thursday