Last Updated on April 7 2025, 11:29 am
The start to the 2025 Formula One season for Red Bull Racing is in stark contrast to the previous two campaigns. After three rounds in 2023 the team had almost double the points of Aston Martin in second place. Last year Max had brake failure in Australia and did not finish, yet both he and the team led in both championships as they headed into round four.
This year things are much worse for Red Bull with them having a 50 point deficit to McLaren who lead the constructors’ and a 14 point gap to Mercedes ahead, yet in terms of their ambition for this year, Verstappen is in the ball game.
The 8 point deficit Max took into this year’s Japanese Grand Prix could easily have become 18 had qualifying and the race gone to form and delivered a McLaren 1-2. It is almost universally accepted in the paddock that McLaren have the quickest F1 car at present with most analysts having the pace advantage between 2 and 3 tenths of a second.
Verstappen won more races than anyone since Brazil
Verstappen somehow hauled his RB21 onto pole position by just thousandths of a second and with his aero setup for low downforce, his lead into turn one became unassailable for those behind. McLaren team boss Andreas Stella said his team had calculated a car follow needed around 0.8s extra pace – before DRS – to make an overtake possible at the Suzuka circuit.
Yet with the surface having been resurfaced, the tyre degradation was minimal and with an obvious one stop strategy the quickest way to go, the race became a bore. Even those who tried to create an offset by running long on their first stint, lost too much time before switching rubber than they were able to catch up.
How crucial this win for Verstappen in Japan we’ll know in another 21 race weekends time, but in terms of Red Bull’s short term strategy it was a massive boost for the team. It became apparent in Japan that there are those within Red Bull who are convinced the incoming rule change for Barcelona will have a significant impact. They believe there are other teams who are running flexi components on their cars and come the FIA clamp down on flexi bodywork in Spain the pace differential will shift in favour of the RB21.
Five more rounds is a long time for Verstappen to repeat the miracles of Suzuka 2025 yet the message from Red Bull is they are hoping to hold on until their competitors lose an advantage.
Red Bull hanging on for rule change
Since the teams left Mexico last season, Verstappen surprisingly has won more Grand Prix than anyone else. Mercedes’ George Russell picked up a victory in there subsequent race in Las Vegas, Norris claimed wins in Abu Dhabi and Australia whilst Oscar Piastri has a solitary victory at the 2025 Chinese GP. Across the seven rounds Max has three wins and the others four between them.
This is how Red Bull hope to extend Verstappen’s run of F1 titles to five with McLaren team mates taking points from each other and even after a shocking start a big Ferrari revival would cheer hearts in Milton Keynes too. Whilst their strategy choices in Japan were limited, McLaren showed no interest in risking a 2-3 in the hope of a 1-3 by taking a tyre gamble.
This is how they set about racing and at times were loudly criticised last year for ignoring the drivers’ title race and merely focusing on the constructors’. The wheels will fall off the McLaren ‘peace and harmony’ bandwagon as the season unfolds unless Norris now 13 points ahead of his team mate continues to slowly extend this lead well into the European season. But the longer Piastri is in contention for world glory McLaren will continue to dither, whilst Max is hoovering up points wherever he can.
The arrival of Yuki Tsunoda so far changed little for Red Bull as he failed to score in Japan following a poor qualifying session on Saturday. He failed to make it out of Q2 after the team gave him a used set of soft tyres for his first run and only on his final effort did he have the new soft rubber and a chance to make Q3. But a mistake and a gust of wind did for Yuki, you perversely qualified P15 on behind Liam Lawson whom he replaced.
Marko says priority to win fifth title for Max
A P2, P4 and a win for Verstappen has kept him very much in the hunt for glory this year and so Red Bull are praying he can continue this scramble for points until round nine in Barcelona. The results there in Spain will be telling given the Circuit de Catalunya offers on of the best overall reads of an F1 cars aerodynamic capabilities.
Dr. Helmut Marko was candid in Japan stating “the whole team is focused” on a fifth title for Max. Team principal Christian Horner confirmed this in Suzuka “our priority is the drivers’ championship” and also said at: “Max is the lead driver and Yuki’s job is to support him as best as he can to retain that drivers’ championship.”
Max doing extraordinary things like his masterful drive in the Brazilian monsoon conditions, from P17 to win by 20 seconds and now his epic final run for pole position in Japan 2025, will not go unnoticed by his competitors. McLaren will come under severe pressure in the drivers’ title race as the season progresses.
Mercedes are the dark horses in the mix, with Antonelli now looking comfortable in the car but his missed opportunities to date have probably cost Mercedes ten points in the fight to challenge McLaren. Japan makes the current pecking order slightly hard to read given the pace required for an overtake advantage was too high amongst a field which is much tighter than 8/10ths of a second.
MORE F1 NEWS – Marko refutes claims about Horner
Red Bull Racing will be relieved after Max Verstappen’s win at the 2025 Japanese Formula One Grand Prix following a tumultuous two weeks for the team since China. Arriving in Suzuka, the team faced a media barrage following their decision to demote Liam Lawson and replace him with Yuki Tsunoda.
Dr. Helmut Marko had been doing the rounds of the European F1 media following the announcement, claiming the original decision to place Lawson in the seat vacated by Sergio Perez had been “unanimous” back in December.
As TJ13 reported last week, following the announcement of Lawson taking the second Red Bull seat Christian Horner actually said: “I think the feeling within the team is that the trajectory Liam is on has more potential, which is why we’ve taken that route. But that doesn’t rule Yuki out in the future – it was a very split decision and Yuki certainly impressed the team when he tested in Abu Dhabi.“…. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
