Racing Bulls surprised by performance as they find “sweet spot”

Racing Bulls have started their 2025 Formula 1 season with huge success. The team, split between Milton Keynes and Faenza, has created a package that allows its drivers to extract consistent performance while its parent team Red Bull struggles with its operating window. According to racing director Alan Permane, the team has found a “sweet spot” that they’re eager to fully utilise this weekend in Saudi Arabia. 

With strong showings at Melbourne, Shanghai, and Suzuka, the team has been surprised by the performance of their VCARB 02. 

“We knew after Bahrain that the car was decent, that’s for sure,” Permane explained to Motorsport.com and other media. “We didn’t quite know it was as good as it turned out to be in Melbourne and certainly Shanghai and Suzuka were all good races, and then we went back to Bahrain and struggled last week.”

When asked if their car could be described as ‘benign,’ Permane was quick to agree. 

“You’re right, I guess you could say it is a benign car. It tends to put it on the track, drivers are happy, and we just fine-tune it over the weekend.”

This stands in huge contrast to Red Bull, which has struggled with a spikey RB21 this season – a car that even reigning champion Max Verstappen is struggling to manage. 

“I’m not an aerodynamicist—but there’s always a trade-off between peak downforce and drivability, and everyone has their wind tunnel metrics they’re aiming for,” Permane explained. “And we’ve just hit a sweet spot, that’s all. And of course we want more of everything. We want it to be even easier to drive and we want even more downforce, and that’s where the next steps will come.”

Despite their strong form so far this season, Racing Bulls struggled at the Bahrain Grand Prix. But the director assures us that this was an outlier. 

“Absolutely, yes. Yes, definitely. I mean, Suzuka—the car was phenomenal and had an amazing race there, and I think at other tracks it’s been relatively easy to get the pace out of it. So we’re confident here [Saudi Arabia] that Bahrain will be the anomaly.”

Talking after the Bahrain campaign, Red Bull chief Christian Horner discussed the challenges faced by his team.

“The problems are understood,” he admitted. “The problem is that the solutions, with what we see within our tools compared to what we’re seeing on track, aren’t correlating.

“I think that that’s what we need to get to the bottom of: why can we not see within our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit?”