The 2025 Formula 1 season is beginning to take shape. With the championship now at Round 13, the general situation is increasingly clear, and four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen has started to provide some early assessments. Red Bull Racing, the dominant force of previous seasons, has not been performing at the same high level this year, and Verstappen seems to be gradually coming to terms with that reality.
The team based in Milton Keynes began to show signs of decline during the 2024 season. Although Max Verstappen had still managed to build a significant points advantage over his rivals last year — which allowed him to clinch the World Drivers’ Championship with relative ease — some of the technical and performance issues from that campaign have carried over into 2025. As a result, the Dutch driver, except for a few rare races, has struggled to pose a real threat to the McLaren drivers this season.
Verstappen: “The 2024 problems affected our 2025 car development”
In an interview with RaceFans.net, conducted before Red Bull Racing officially appointed Laurent Mekies as the new team principal following the departure of Christian Horner, Max Verstappen shared a candid analysis of the team’s current challenges. The Dutch driver attempted to take an objective view of what may have contributed to the team’s downturn in form.
“If everyone knew exactly what to do, everyone would be winning races or at least consistently fighting at the front,” Max Verstappen explained. “We’re not where we want to be right now, but we’re still fighting for podiums. It could definitely be worse — we could be running at the back of the grid. So we’re working on it.”
He continued by referencing the issues the team experienced last year: “In 2024 we were a bit disappointed by the balance problems we faced with the car. So before we could make real progress, we first had to understand what was actually going wrong. That probably had an impact on the development of this year’s car as well.”
Verstappen: “We struggle in slow-speed corners, while McLaren shines in medium-speed turns”
The performance gap between Red Bull and McLaren has become increasingly evident, and Verstappen admitted that he finds it difficult to believe the deficit can be recovered during the current season.
“We probably won’t be able to close the gap. That’s just how Formula 1 works,” he admitted. “We might improve a little, but so will the other teams. Matching McLaren’s current pace won’t be easy, and it definitely won’t happen overnight. Nobody expected McLaren to make such a leap forward so suddenly. It takes time.”
He then elaborated on the broader picture: “While McLaren was moving in the right direction, we ended up going the opposite way,” Verstappen reflected. “We entered the new regulatory era in 2022 on the right foot, but we’ve since struggled. Now we need to understand exactly what went wrong.”
Finally, Verstappen addressed the specific weaknesses of the current RB21 car — the 2025 Red Bull challenger — highlighting the technical limitations that prevent it from matching the competition: “We are lacking on circuits that feature certain characteristics, particularly those with many low-speed corners. On the other hand, McLaren is especially strong in medium-speed corners. That’s where we really struggle to match them,” he concluded, as reported by RaceFans.net.
Leave a Reply