Helmut Marko claims Red Bull has solved ‘jumping like a kangroo’ issue on 2025 F1 challenger
The Milton-Keynes-based Red Bull F1 team's 2024 challenger was not able to ride well over the kerbs in the 2024 season.
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Helmut Marko, Max Verstappen and Christian Horner (via IMAGO)
The Red Bull Formula 1 team had a tumultuous time in the extremely competitive 2024 season. The outfit struggled with quite a few things, and one of them was the jumping issue while going over the kerbs in the RB20.
In light of this, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has recently made it known that the team has fixed the issue on the RB21 (2025 challenger). Max Verstappen was extremely disappointed with his 2024 car and at one point, even deemed it as ‘jumping like a kangaroo’.
One of our major weaknesses was that we could not drive completely over the kerbs. Max said that the car jumps like a kangaroo and on certain circuits that cost us a lot of time. So we think that these weaknesses have been solved, but we will only really see that during the test in Bahrain.
Helmut Marko via Sport1.de
Looking at the reaction of the 81-year-old, it seems the Milton-Keynes-based team has finally managed to fix the jumping issue. However, despite the optimism, he has asserted that the extent of the fix would only be known during the 2025 pre-season testing.
RB21 all set to go into ‘final production’ ahead of 2025 season
While Helmut Marko has asserted that the RB21 will not jump like a kangaroo, he has also admitted to the car being ready to go into final production. Red Bull had the third-fastest challenger on the grid in the 2024 F1 season.
I would say the basic concept is ready. The car is de facto finished and is now going into the final production. At that point you can see how much weight can be saved. The task for the engineers was to build a car with a wider operating window. One that is not so much on the limit that it is very difficult for the drivers to keep the car under control.
Helmut Marko via the same interview
The 2025 F1 season will be the last campaign in the ground-effect era. Max Verstappen has amassed the drivers’ world championship four times since 2021 and will be one of the favorites again in the coming campaign.
However, from the team’s point of view, it will be extremely important to give Verstappen a solid challenger. If the RB21 faces similar issues in comparison to the RB20, the outfit could lose out on the 2025 constructors’ and drivers’ title.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)