Gp Bahrain, Red Bull. The qualifying sessions for the Bahrain Grand Prix ended with Red Bull taking a step back compared to Japan. Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda finished in P7 and P10, respectively. The evening for the Milton Keynes team didn’t start well. A mistake from Max Verstappen at turn 14 during his first attempt forced him to use up a set of red tires, thus changing the strategy originally devised by the team. Verstappen had brought four sets of red tires.
Yuki Tsunoda also had an issue with his first attempt, going outside track limits, which resulted in his lap time being deleted. He barely made it to Q2 by the skin of his teeth. The same tension was felt in the second part of qualifying. Yuki Tsunoda reached Q3 with just a 17-thousandths advantage over Alpine’s Jack Doohan. For the first time this season, Red Bull managed to bring both cars into the final qualifying session.
In the end, what happened in the first two qualifying sessions was just a preview of the team’s Saturday. Max struggled a lot with grip and experienced problems with the braking system of his car. Tsunoda, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out the limits of the RB21.
Gp Bahrain 2025 – Red Bull, Max Verstappen: “I don’t know what to say. I did my best”
After the dream weekend in Japan, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull returns to reality. It wasn’t an exceptional Saturday for the Dutch driver, who will start from P7 tomorrow, just behind his title rival, Lando Norris. However, it must be admitted that the MCL39 demonstrated superior pace compared to the rivals, including Verstappen himself. The question now is how Norris’s car will behave in dirty air.
“This whole weekend has been difficult. I had problems with brake sensitivity and braking power,” admits Verstappen. “In addition to that, I also struggled with the grip on the track. We worked a lot on the setup, but nothing really seems to give us a clear direction. So I guess this shows that we’re struggling in other areas too. I have no idea how the hard tires, which I saved for the race, will perform.”
“I think the degradation will be very high, and with the hard tires, there is naturally less grip, so it’s normal to slip a bit more. I have no idea how it will end. But at least it’s an option. We’ll see what happens.”
“Am I worried about this result? I don’t know. I just try to do my best. Tomorrow I will try to score as many points as possible. I mean, I do that every single weekend. But I really don’t know where we will be in terms of race pace. I just hope there’s a bit of action in the middle of the pack,” Max Verstappen concludes, looking frustrated.
Gp Bahrain 2025 – Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda: “I accept the result, but…”
Given the negative trend of Red Bull, making it to Q3 is a good result. Nothing exceptional, of course, as Yuki Tsunoda admitted in his post-qualifying interviews. The Japanese driver is still in the learning phase, but looking at his teammate’s position, Red Bull wasn’t exactly on top form today.
“I accept it. Obviously, as a driver, you want more, but considering the pace I had during practice and the fact that it’s only my second race, I accept the result. It’s difficult to drive this car,” Yuki Tsunoda confesses, still searching for performance with his new car.
“It’s not easy to get the car into the right operating window, which, as I mentioned last weekend, is really narrow. I’m trying a lot of things to get into that window. It’s natural to have ups and downs, like what happened in free practice. My performance today wasn’t exceptional, so I just need to improve a bit as a driver to go faster. However, I have a fair amount of confidence,” Yuki Tsunoda concludes.
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