Red Bull F1's secret new project is 3 months ahead of time and a game changer

The 2024 season was a nightmare year for Red Bull, as they lost their form midway and were swallowed by McLaren and Ferrari in the final part of the year. They lost their lead in the constructors championship and were pushed to third.

If not for Max Verstappen, the 2024 season would have ended in agony for Red Bull. The Red Bull team has now pointed out one big issue they found in their team. It's not an issue in their car, but the wind tunnel they used for all their testing.

Helmut Marko said there is an issue with their World War II wind tunnel, and until this year it worked well. Red Bull is the only team on the grid using the oldest wind tunnel. It's nearly 70 years old and outdated compared with its rivals.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has labelled the wind tunnel as a ‘Cold War Relic’. While the team has updated the tunnel over the years, it will not help in the long term. A wind tunnel is one of the biggest investments by F1 teams, as it costs millions to build a tunnel.

It is used to check the car's aerodynamic ability, and Formula 1 organisers monitor the time teams spend in wind tunnels. Like Red Bull, its key rival McLaren has been using Toyota’s old wind tunnel since the 2010 season. But in the 2023 summer, they built their own updated wind tunnel, which gave them good results in the 2024 season.

They were the fastest team on the grid and won the constructors championship after 26 years. Aston Martin, who used Mercedes-built wind tunnels all these years, recently built its own at the new facility in Silverstone. Now the Red Bull F1 team is building a new modern wind tunnel, and they are already 3 months ahead of time.

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Red Bull's New Tunnel Project

🚨 | Red Bull is investing in a new windtunnel, approved by Mateschitz before his passing.

The team has used the old Arrows wind tunnel since 2004, which was repurposed for F1 use having existed as an aircraft development facility since first operating as RAE Bedford in 1946. pic.twitter.com/YZsThCIqsy

— RBR News 🇳🇱🇲🇽 (@redbulletin) November 4, 2022

Red Bulls Technical Director Pierre Wache said, “With the building work and afterwards all the new machines, you never know when it's coming, but we are ahead of the schedule at the moment. We are three months ahead of the plans. The guys are doing a very good job, but you never know if you get any delays somewhere else. It's a big project.”

The new wind tunnel will be operational next year and be a game-changer for Red Bull during the 2027 season or the 2026 season’s later part. It will also help Red Bull to match their rivals. The current tunnel was so old that Jos Verstappen, Max Verstappen’s father, used the facility during his racing days at Arrows. Even though the Milton Keynes squad constantly updated the machine over the years, there is a limitation to everything, and the machine is now at its end stage. So they are upgrading to a new wind tunnel to get more data and aerodynamic advantages.

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