How Red Bull is reacting to 2025 F1 woes

If Formula 1’s mixed-weather opener in Australia could mask Red Bull’s ails, thanks in no small part to Max Verstappen’s exquisite driving, then Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix really set the alarm bells ringing.

Verstappen rallied to finish fourth with a strong second stint on the hard tyres, but the preceding stint on mediums – in which the Dutchman shipped nearly a second per lap to the McLarens – further exposed some of Red Bull’s weaknesses after an equally bruising 19-lap sprint race on Saturday, where he too faced crippling front tyre wear.

On Sunday, Verstappen dropped from fourth on the grid behind both Ferraris at the start, with his reaction to losing two places quite telling. “To be honest, the first lap actually worked out nicely for me, because my place is anyway not up to their standards,” he said after struggling to keep up with Leclerc’s damaged Ferrari as well. “So actually, to be immediately behind them was better, because I just drove my own pace. In Australia I tried to fight, but then you degrade your tyres very aggressively.”

Red Bull’s issues are compounded – or perhaps highlighted – by Liam Lawson struggling to get a tune out of the car in the second seat, with discussion already under way about whether the team needs to make a change as early as Japan.

But Lawson’s failure thus far is also Red Bull’s, building a difficult-to-drive 2025 car that offers little consistency in its front-to-rear balance, which then affects tyre degradation – especially on Pirelli’s medium compound in China. It is no big secret that Red Bull is developing its car to predominantly suit the driver that netted it four consecutive driver world titles. But even Verstappen sounded disconsolate over the lack of performance he is getting out of his machine on race runs, calling the RB21 the fourth-fastest car behind McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The Dutchman is heading to Red Bull’s Milton Keynes factory on Wednesday for a deep dive into the team’s situation. Advisor Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com: “Max is in the factory next week, and we’ll discuss [with] the engineers where from his side the weaknesses are. Then we have to try to cure it or to improve the car as soon as possible. It’s changing with different circuits and with different compounds, but McLaren is good at every circuit and [with] every compound.”

He added: “We are worried, but it is not like we are throwing in the towel.”

Verstappen is unsure if a quick fix is on the horizon. “It’s impossible to say,” he said. “It might, might not. We just keep working, we just have to stick together, push hard. That’s what we all do. I know that the team is working flat out.”

No defeatism as China also offers glimmers of hope

With only two races run out of a mammoth 24-race campaign, there is still hope Red Bull can salvage this season. Verstappen’s car appeared to come alive on the hard compound – and lighter fuel loads – throughout the second half of the race, which along with reasonable one-lap pace offers Red Bull some confidence that it can move up the order if it can get its balance issues under control.

“I was a bit positively surprised in the second stint, it gives us a bit more hope and probably a direction as well to look into,” said Verstappen. “But it’s, of course, still not where we want to be, if you compare it to McLaren, especially.”

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Team principal Christian Horner added: “Particularly in the last third of the race, Max got a feeling [from the car], the grip came alive, the car came alive. And he was pretty much the quickest car on the circuit that last third of the race. So, there’s a lot for us to take away and understand. We know we need to put performance on the car.”

But while McLaren looks hard to catch after having the car to beat in both Melbourne and Shanghai, there is no defeatism in the Red Bull camp just yet. Having seen just how quickly McLaren negated Red Bull’s starting advantage last season, Horner doesn’t want to hear anything about shifting focus to 2026 earlier than planned.

“You can’t be that defeatist,” Horner said when asked by Sky Sports if this season was beyond saving. “We’re eight points behind in the drivers’ championship after two races, and there’s everything to play for. And if nothing else, last year teaches you that you can start as strong as you like, it’s how you finish.”

But inevitably teams do need to start switching to 2026 by the summer, so Red Bull can’t afford to miss the target with its early-season upgrades. Horner is confident the team has the strength in depth to do so in its post-Adrian Newey era, and praised Verstappen for leaving no stone unturned.

“Look, we’ve got great strength in depth in our team,” Horner explained. “Everybody in the company knows we’ve got a bit of pace to find and we’ve got the tools, we’ve got the people in order to do that. It’s just unpicking it. I think we’ve got some very good data out of out of today.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Max is working harder than I’ve ever seen him. He’s more integrated into the engineering group than I’ve ever seen. We’ve got a reasonable basis. We were 0.176s off pole, and we were as quick in the second stint as a McLaren. There’s a roadmap of development that is planned now and obviously we’re trying to make sure that that develops what we need in terms of lap time to really put a lot of pressure on the McLarens.

“But they’re not that far ahead. Never say no.”

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording