Red Bull is committing to its new floor for Formula 1's season opening Australian Grand Prix, despite the doubts it had with it in Bahrain testing.
The squad is coming off the back of a pre-season test that did not match expectations – with its new RB21 not responding to set-up and balance changes in the way that it had hoped.
This has left world champion Max Verstappen doubting his team is in a position to fight for victory in Melbourne this weekend.
Red Bull's chase for answers from its 2025 design was highlighted on the final day of the test when it kept switching around its car configuration – using both its newest and original launch-specification floors with its different noses.
The team suggested that late reversion to its launch-spec floor was due to damage to the newer version earlier in the day, but Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has suggested that there were wider doubts about it.
Speaking to Auto Motor Und Sport, Marko said: "The [new front] wing worked well, the floor not.
"That's why, on the last day of testing, we started putting parts of the old floor back on the car in the afternoon. And with this combination, the new wing and old floor, things went better."
While the older floor seemed better then, the team appears to have got a better understanding of things since the test and will run its latest version from the start of practice in Melbourne.
Verstappen himself is not changing his tune about the situation the team is in though, as he thinks it still needs to find more gains.
Speaking at the Australian GP about the RB21, he said: "I think naturally there is an improvement, but I've said it before: there are still things that we want to improve on and do better now."
Pushed on if he expected a closer fight at the front, Verstappen said: "Impossible to know at the moment. I know that we are not the quickest at the moment, but again, it's a very long season.
"If you would have asked that question here last year and then at the end of the season again, it looked completely different. So a lot of things can always change quite quickly in F1."
Marko reaffirmed comments made by Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache that the RB21 had at least got rid of the peaky characteristics of its predecessor, even if it was not the finished product at the moment.
"The new car is more predictable, reacts to set-up changes as expected, and not like last year, where there was an immediate one-second drop if you fell outside the working window," he said.
"But it still has weaknesses that we need to work on over the course of the season. There is noticeable progress, but not to the extent that we would be on the same level as McLaren."
