It was a nightmare weekend for Red Bull Racing at the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix. There are few other ways to describe what unfolded at the Hungaroring for the reigning Constructors’ Champions. The Milton Keynes-based team walked away from the Budapest round with just two championship points, earned solely through Max Verstappen’s ninth-place finish—an unusually poor result for the Dutchman and the team that has dominated recent Formula 1 seasons.
To make matters worse, Red Bull was even outperformed by their sister team, Racing Bulls, as New Zealander Liam Lawson delivered an excellent performance and finished in eighth place. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda endured a weekend to forget. The Japanese driver was eliminated in Q1 during Saturday’s qualifying session and had to start Sunday’s race from the pit lane due to setup changes. He ultimately crossed the finish line in 17th position and was lapped, never coming close to scoring points or making any significant impression on the race.
Laurent Mekies’ post-race analysis
The analysis after the race from Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing’s new team principal, reflected the mood within the garage: disappointment and frustration. The Frenchman admitted that the weekend had been extremely challenging from the very first moments of Friday’s Free Practice 1 session, and that the team never managed to recover from its early struggles.
“It was a very difficult weekend from the very first lap in FP1, and the race was a reflection of that situation,” Laurent Mekies explained. “We were clearly lacking something fundamental throughout this Grand Prix. We evaluated many different factors with both Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen in order to try to get back to the performance level we had in previous races and to bring the car into the right operating window. The entire team tried everything possible, but we were simply missing the baseline performance required to compete at the front. The reality is that we did not have the performance we needed.”
Laurent Mekies further emphasized that even the pit stop strategies were ineffective in changing their fortunes. “When we brought Max Verstappen into the pits, it was not going to change the outcome of the race,” he said. “We simply did not have the lap time necessary to fight further up the field. Yuki Tsunoda was in a similar situation and, starting from the pit lane, was never really able to influence the race in any meaningful way.”
Despite the disappointing result, Laurent Mekies remained focused on the future and the lessons to be learned from such a difficult weekend. “The important thing about this race is that we gathered enough data to help us avoid being in a similar situation again in the future and to make a positive step forward. These are the kinds of weekends that offer the most learning opportunities, and that is exactly what we plan to do.”
Looking ahead, Laurent Mekies acknowledged the amount of work ahead during the upcoming summer break. “We will take time to reflect during the pause in the season, and we are not underestimating the effort required to get back to our usual performance levels. Fortunately, we have many talented individuals in the team who can help us overcome this challenge. Our goal is to return from the break with a different level of performance and get back to where we belong.”
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