In terms of whether the RB21 felt like a step forward from its predecessor during the three days of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, the reigning World Champion added: “Yeah, I think naturally there’s an improvement, but there are still things that we want to improve on and to do better.
“This is a different track to Bahrain so that already will feel a bit different to drive the car here, but step by step.”
Verstappen suggested that it is “impossible to know at the moment” if the 2025 season will see an even tighter battle play out than in the previous campaign, but acknowledged that – as was the case last year – things can change rapidly.
“I know that we are not the quickest at the moment, but again it’s a very long season,” the 27-year-old said. “If you would have asked that question here last year then at the end of the season again it looked completely different, so a lot of things can always change quite quickly in Formula 1.”
The team experienced some issues with the RB20 last season, but Verstappen is hopeful that the squad will continue to address the problems as much as is possible before switching focus to the incoming set of new regulations that come into effect in 2026.
“We’ll try our best to make it as competitive as possible,” he explained. “It’s the final year of the regulations so I guess up to a certain point you focus on this year and then naturally you focus on a whole different thing.
