Pierre Vache: If you are sure of success, then you have already lost

Red Bull Racing technical director Pierre Vache is not sure whether the team will dominate in 2025 as much as it did at the beginning of 2024, when the foundation was laid for Max Verstappen’s fourth title.

Pierre Vache: “We are happy that we were able to quickly turn the situation around this season. But I’m not sure this picture will continue into 2025 as our rivals are faster or equal to us in terms of speed. We face an uphill battle all season.

In our industry it is like this: if you are certain of success, then you have already lost. To be the best you have to work hard, everyone in the team has to work very hard. Everyone on the team, each in their own place, is trying to make at least a little progress, and then more, more and more. And this is very difficult. You cannot have confidence in yourself, because if I have self-confidence, then I am calm and go to sleep, do not go to work, do not achieve results.

To be honest, we expected such a championship battle in 2023 as this year, but that didn’t happen. And in the 24th at the beginning of the season there was no battle either! I can’t explain this.

We didn’t dominate because we worked better. On the contrary, the opponents performed poorly at certain times. It’s not our fault that McLaren got involved late this season.

The key moment for us was the race in Monza. She identified some issues with the car that we hadn’t seen before… Or seen, but not flagged. And I’m impressed with how the team has responded to resolve or mitigate these issues. And we have already taken something to Austin – even Max said there that the car has improved.

Our goal for next season is to build a more versatile car that will be competitive on different types of tracks. “We weren’t too fast in Vegas and improving speed in slow corners is one of our goals.”