Red Bull ups upgrade push as McLaren holds fire

Red Bull has arrived in Mexico with the only significant car upgrade in the pitlane - while McLaren insists its early development stop was deliberate, even if it risked handing Max Verstappen a late-season surge.

The RB21 appeared with revised cooling inlets, new front brake ducts, floor adjustments and edge-wing updates - a clear sign the world champions aren’t easing off.

"Changes at this point in the season may seem significant, but they don’t always translate into big numbers," explained Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan. "These are small steps, but those steps show we’re heading in the right direction."

Monaghan said the parts were the result of lessons learned from earlier updates. "This is a combination of several things we’ve observed since Monza," he confirmed.

"We’re not talking about anything revolutionary. It’s mainly that we’ve arranged certain things better - a layout improvement to give us more space under the bodywork."

He admitted the timing wasn’t ideal. "The timing might not be perfect, but that’s life," he said. "We’re already deep into work on the 2026 car, yet we’ve managed to bring this upgrade. If we can benefit from both projects, it’s worth it."

McLaren, by contrast, has paused its updates for the season - a move Andrea Stella says was essential to protect the future.

"To win championships, you need a competitive car," he said. "We carefully considered when to shift focus to 2026. From an aerodynamic standpoint, our car was already highly developed. Gaining a single point in efficiency would have taken weeks. We’d reached a plateau."

He added that Red Bull’s aggressive push could cost them later - and that they may have less to lose with regards to 2026.

"Perhaps Red Bull had more room to develop because they had problems at the beginning of the year and are now focusing more on the 2025 car," Stella said. "Maybe they’re willing to sacrifice something towards 2026, because they foresee other problems for that year.

"So they’re saying: let’s focus on 2025."

That "something," insiders believe, refers to Red Bull’s first in-house power unit with Ford - a project rumoured to be lagging.

Marko dismissed that talk immediately.

"That’s how we’ve always done it," said the Red Bull advisor. "We kept developing the car in 2021 and Max became champion. The following year, with new regulations, we were competitive again."

Still, Stella insists McLaren made the smarter long-term call. "The 2026 project would have been severely disadvantaged if we had kept developing," he said. "Because we became constructors’ champions, we’re also the most restricted in wind tunnel and CFD time.

"We had to make wise choices. We hit our ceiling."

He added that continuing would likely have backfired. "Sometimes you see teams bring upgrades that have the opposite effect. These cars are incredibly sensitive aerodynamically," he said.

Indeed, Verstappen admitted his Friday in Mexico was not as smooth as the timesheets suggested. The Dutchman topped FP2 but complained of poor long-run pace after sitting out FP1 for rookie Arvid Lindblad.

"The rest of the time, it was pretty bad," Verstappen said.

"The big problem is the long runs. That worries me for the race. You can be fast over one lap, but if you don’t have race pace, it’s hard to win."