Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Waché has downplayed the extent of upgraded parts that the team will try out on the final day of testing in Bahrain.

With the RB21 bearing a striking resemblance to last year’s Red Bull RB20, speculation has abounded that the Milton Keynes-based squad is set to roll out a significant upgrade to the car for the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Pierre Waché on RB21: New parts will not be ‘massively different’

The RB21 started life in assured fashion in Wednesday’s first day of action at the Bahrain International Circuit, with Max Verstappen setting the team’s quickest time of the day during the afternoon’s more optimal driving conditions.

The reigning World Champion logged the third-quickest time of the day, just under a quarter of a second behind the pacesetting McLaren of Lando Norris. Earlier in the day, Red Bull debutant Liam Lawson put in 58 laps en route to the eighth-fastest time of the day, nine-tenths down on Verstappen’s time.

What has been noticeable about the new RB21 externally is that it bears a striking resemblance to last year’s RB20 – a car concept that proved extremely quick when in the right operating window, but proved to be peaky and difficult to exploit, particularly through the middle phase of the season as the team’s development path went awry.

But there were clear signs of recovery by season end, as a step back on upgrades to introduce a revised floor brought back some confidence for Verstappen, with the RB21 heading in the direction of evolution rather than a knee-jerk reaction to start afresh with a different direction.

A report from Germany’s Motorsport-Magazin suggested that Red Bull does have a large upgrade package in the works, which could be rolled out during Friday’s running in Bahrain – but technical director Pierre Waché has denied that updated components will fundamentally transform the car.

“No, it will not be radically different,” he told PlanetF1.com in an exclusive interview.

“We will evaluate parts. It’s true that, based on the calendar and everything, but I think everybody’s doing the same.

“Nothing has changed compared to previous years.

“You have your baseline car, and you try to have some stuff from the full system of development to come to the track as soon as possible and, based on the capacity of manufacturing the part and everything. you try to evaluate before race one.

“I think we have some new parts coming for day three, but it is not massively different.

“For sure, everybody’s doing this, you have some small parts to evaluate.

“It was planned for race one, but we try to push it a little bit for day three here because it gives us a possibility to see whether the direction is correct or not, but it’s not magic.”

Asked if the car as is being tested on track at this point will be reflective of the car on track in Australia, Waché confirmed in the affirmative.

With the teams heading into the fourth and final year of the current regulations, the French engineer said that there is still potential to be exploited in the regulations – but the key issue will be in ensuring that the peak performance of the car is accessible to the driver.

“I don’t know the ceiling,” he said when asked just how much headroom is left in the regulations.

“I know that it is difficult to find performance. It’s very difficult if you stay in the regulation box. It’s the nature of the regulation, every type of regulation, that after two or three years, you start to be more on the plateau and it’s more difficult in the real world and developments start to be less and, after that, it’s based on risk.

“Us, I’m not sure we are at the ceiling. We can find more potential, maybe… it’s more where you find it.

“If it’s not usable by the driver, it’s a big issue. What we can find in terms of performance, and maybe not the ceiling, is how we can develop the car so that the driver can.”

Christian Horner: Subtle changes, but RB21 ‘fundamentally’ in Melbourne-spec

Speaking in the F1 press conference on Wednesday in Bahrain, team boss Christian Horner said the car as is being run at present is essentially the same as what will be seen at the season opener in Australia.

“It’s basically the car that we will start the season with,” he said.

“There may be some subtle changes introduced between now and then, but fundamentally, it’s what will be taken to Melbourne.”

Asked the same as Waché, on whether the ceiling of the regulations is being approached, he said, “I think that, in this cycle of regulations, it’s clear that the cars are converging and look very, very similar.

“That’s inevitable, marginal gains are going to be there – every surface on our car is different from last year, it just looks similar because it’s a similar philosophy, and you can see other cars have converged with that.

“That’s what’s going to make the racing so tight this year, some cars might suit some circuits better than others.

“It’s all going to be about extracting the maximum amount out of your package and getting it right on the day.

“So I think the biggest winner out of that will be the fans and the followers of the sport.”

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