In Formula 1, there’s a truth that withstands time, regulations, and technical revolutions: the first rival a driver faces is never the one in front at the first corner, but the one sharing the garage, the engineers, the data, and every single detail of the same car. It’s a silent and relentless comparison, often tougher than any on-track duel, because it eliminates all excuses and exposes a driver’s true value. With equal machinery, what emerges is pure talent, adaptability, pressure management, and above all consistency—the quality that separates champions from mere performers.
This series is designed to tell the story of that internal battle, which more than anything else defines hierarchies, guides strategies, and sometimes even determines careers. After analyzing the Mercedes duel, today the focus shifts to another 2025 championship-defining team: Red Bull.
Red Bull is a team where internal competitiveness—or the lack of it—has never been a minor detail, but a structural element influencing technical balance, political choices, and even the narrative of the championship.
Team-mate battle Red Bull 2025
In a Red Bull accustomed to years of dominance and constant pressure, 2025 brought back a recurring theme: the challenge of chasing results with a second driver unable to match what Max Verstappen achieves with the same car. The Dutch champion continued to set the pace with almost disarming consistency, while Yuki Tsunoda faced the toughest challenge of his career, trying to close a gap that in Milton Keynes matters more than any rival on track.
Max vs Yuki: unchallenged dominance
The comparison between Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda during the 2025 season in the Red Bull RB21 paints a clear and harsh picture. Verstappen dominated across every metric: he finished ahead in 23 of 24 races and beat his teammate in every qualifying session.
The 421 points Max Verstappen scored versus 33 for Tsunoda highlight an absolute technical and performance gap, confirmed by best finishes—eight wins for Verstappen, sixth for Yuki Tsunoda—and fastest laps, where the Dutchman recorded the only highlight. Once again, Red Bull faced a recurring truth: Max Verstappen consistently capitalizes on every opportunity, while his teammate, despite flashes of improvement, struggled to deliver results worthy of the team, whose seat remains one of the most coveted in the paddock, even if it carries immense pressure.
And in race pace?
The numbers show the three-time world champion’s constant and overwhelming superiority. Looking at the average of the best 30 laps for each Grand Prix, Verstappen was faster in 21 of 22 races, with gaps ranging from 0.3 to 1.5 seconds per lap, depending on the circuit. Only in Singapore did the gap drop below 0.2 seconds, while at Spa, Suzuka, and Silverstone, Verstappen imposed more than a second of advantage on average lap pace.
Over a 30-lap stint, this translates into a potential gap exceeding 30 seconds, clearly showing Yuki Tsunoda’s inability to match his teammate’s pace. Red Bull, while finding the right setup to stay in the drivers’ championship fight until the final race, was penalized by a second driver unable to fully exploit the RB21’s potential, coupled with a McLaren fielding two consistently competitive drivers.
Once again, Max Verstappen raced alone at the front, while the garage next door struggled to keep up.
2025 confirmed a truth well-known in Milton Keynes: to win the Constructors’ Championship, having a superstar is not enough—you need a team that performs on both sides of the garage. While Max Verstappen continued to write the headlines, Yuki Tsunoda endured a season that, rather than consolidating, questioned and ultimately determined his (non) future at Red Bull.
In the next episode, the focus will shift to a completely different team: Haas. A team that underwent a transitional season, balancing renewed ambitions with structural limitations, where the internal battle revealed far more than the results alone suggest.
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