Fleet Max Verstappen?
At Red Bull the panic goes around after the disaster
At Red Bull the panic goes around after the disaster
04/14/2025, 11:52 a.m.
Max Verstappen votes world champion four times in a row. While he can ward off McLaren’s attacks last year, things are not going well for him in this Formula 1 season. He circles big mistakes to his own Red Bull racing team. This makes the alarm bells shrill.
Max Verstappen was shaking his head in his paralyzing company car before he started a large settlement. “Basically everything went wrong. The start, the pit stops, the pace, just everything,” the Formula 1 world champion after his messed up working day in Bahrain and in the end even spoke of a “disaster”. Left behind on the route and fallen back to third place in the World Cup – promptly the bad mood of the defending champion again fueled the speculation about a farewell to Red Bull.
“The concern is great. In the near future, improvements have to come that he has a car again with which he can win,” said Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko as usual at Sky. On days like this in Sakhir, the team bosses are repeatedly reminded of the alleged exit clause, which should enable Verstappen to change if the racing team cannot offer him a title.
Mercedes are considered possible goals for the four -time champion – despite all the Dementis by team boss Toto Wolff in Bahrain – and Aston Martin with design superhire Adrian Newey. The question is how high Verstappen frustration is tolerance before he seriously deals with other employers.
Verstappen: “We are stuck”
“We have to hold out and try to improve the situation. At the moment we are a little firm,” said Verstappen. In addition to the technical and aerodynamic weaknesses of his car, there was also a breakdown with the team’s traffic light system in Sakhir, so that Verstappen remained unnecessarily long when changing tires.
“This race has disclosed some of our difficulties that we have to park as quickly as possible. We understand where the problems are, the solutions take a little longer,” said team boss Christian Horner. After personnel conversions through the departure of Newey and team manager Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull is far from the perfection and overwhelming dominance at the climax of the title years.
“It’s already hard,” admitted the Dutch. Verstappen is currently in the World Cup race, just as his unexpected victory in Japan showed a week ago. With 69 points, he only had eight fewer than the leader Lando Norris and five less than his McLaren teammate Oscar Piatri on Sunday.
Schumacher: “It will be tight for Red Bull”
With his second win of the season in Bahrain, the Australian Piatri showed that McLaren may even be the first candidate on the World Cup crown. Rained and flawlessly duped the entire competition. Verstappen must hope that the two McLaren drivers in a stable-internal duel will be so that he will become a laughing third party.
But Red Bull has to quickly find more speed in the car. At the race in Imola, an update package should alleviate the worst concerns. But the cause of the problems would first have to be found. “We don’t know where the worm is,” admitted consulent Marko.
An ambition like Verstappen shouldn’t like to hear something like that. Sky expert Ralf Schumacher already expects personnel consequences after the sobering start of the season. “It will be tight for Red Bull. The chair will begin, I am sure,” said the former Formula 1 pilot.
