Given all the talk from Red Bull – when not taking and hiring drivers – has been about how awful their RB21 challenger for 2025 has turned out, seeing Max Verstappen sitting just one point behind McLaren’s Lando Norris after three Grand Prix and a Sprint is not too shabby a result.
The McLaren dominance in Australia was mitigated by wet conditions which cause Oscar Piastri to make a mistake and hand second place to Verstappen on a plate. The in China, again the McLarens looked ahead of the field only for them to mess up Sprint qualifying but claim their first 1-2 of the year in the race on Sunday.
Again expectations were high for the papaya liveried cars in the land of the rising sun, yet both made mistakes in their final qualifying runs whilst Verstappen pulled out ‘miracle’ lap claiming a crucial pole position by just 0.014seconds. All Max needed was to beat the McLaren’s into turn one in Suzuka and the race was his, which he did. The resurfaced circuit meant that tyre degradation was minimal which failed to showcase one of the MCL39’s strengths.
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One thing Red Bull have stepped up when comparing the first three race weekends of ’23 and ’24 is reliability. In both those season’s Verstappen had issues in Australia whilst leading the race which forced him to retire his car. So far so good in 2025, although the challenge from McLaren, which failed to catch fire until round six in Miami last season, has this year seen the team begin the year ahead of the field in terms of the inherent pace in their car.
A review of the opening skirmishes of the 2025 season would probably read, ‘Red Bull maximise their chances with Verstappen but McLaren mistakes lead to missed opportunities’. This is the view of team boss Andreas Stella, whilst he doesn’t accept the mistakes element of the summary, he argues Red Bull cannot maintain their current rate of challenge going forward.
In Japan, the newly resurfaced circuit created incredibly low tyre degradation which meant McLaren’s tyre whispering MCL39 could not show off its complete range of party tricks. Stella admits it was Verstappen who made the difference pulling off a stunning final run in qualifying and then benefitting from the surface being kind to the red Bull’s tyres which was a key tool in his armoury in holding off the McLaren challenge.
The McLaren chief believes this was a one off outlier event and that the superior engineering of the McLaren F1 2026 car will win out over the course of the 24 race weekend season. “I think the most important condition to pursue both championships is having the best car,” the Mirror reports Stella as saying.
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“When we are not in condition to win, finish on the podium and if in the long term you keep performing like this, I think this will be rewarding. Max at the moment is making the difference himself, but it is very difficult to keep that up for 24 events in a season if you don’t have the best car,” Stella concludes.
Red Bull themselves admit their car is not the class of the field but as TJ13 reported yesterday, Horner and the team have a short term strategy in place to see them through to the regulation change regarding front wing design coming in Barcelona.
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 that: “Max is the lead driver and Yuki’s job is to support him as best as he can to retain that drivers’ championship.”
This ‘hang on to the coat tails of McLaren until our car is more competitive’ strategy from Red Bull is both realistic and pragmatic and may come back to bite Stella later in the season. The McLaren principal is almost suggesting that Japan was a one off for this season, but this would be to deny the repeated feats of driving genius the world champion displays on multiple occasions each year.
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Stella misguided over number of outlier circuits
In fact across the last seven Grand Prix when the Red Bull car has never been the quickest, Max has three wins – more than any other driver – and there are more outlier circuits ahead before F1 returns to the European season of racing. The next two events are in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, neither of which were circuits McLaren excelled at during the 2024 season.
Of course their car has moved on significantly since then, but Jeddah in particular is similar to Suzuka in terms of qualifying, where the bravest of the brave will find time where the rest of the field cannot. Max in his underpowered RB21 will no doubt be in contention to be the quickest of the drivers as they hurtle between the walls along the corniche.
After that its the Miami Grand Prix, now in its fourth year on the F1 calendar. Verstappen won the opening two races in the shadow of the Miami Dolphins stadium, but a late safety car played into Lando Norris hands last year handing him his maiden F1 victory. Again the street circuit nature of the layout in Miami will again mean bravery is of a premium whilst the absolute quickest car is not guaranteed a front row start.
The first of the European circuits comes after F1’s first visit to the USA is in Emilia-Romagne. And old school track with similarities to Suzuka. Last year the McLaren’s were quicker than Verstappen in practice, but once again the maestro pulled out a magic final lap to pip Piastri to pole by just 0.075s.
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As in Japan, overtaking was at a premium and no matter what Piastri and Norris tried, they could not find away past the RB20 in the hands of the world champion. Land harried Verstappen over the closing third of the race but could find no way through and the Red Bull driver made not a single mistake. Verstappen won and the time to Norris at the chequered flag was the finest. Margin of 0.76s.
Monaco is up next, the scene of a tragedy for Max and Sergio in their RB20’s a year ago. The suspension was unable to cope with the height of the kerbs around the streets of the principality, lacking compliance it bounced the drivers back across the track costing valuable lap time.
Red Bull appear to have solved this problem to some extent this year which was evidenced last time out in Japan. Verstappen was the mightiest of all the drivers through the final chicane in Suzuka, which has a kerb similar in nature to Portier in Monaco where last year Verstappen lost huge chunks of time.
Next up is the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, where the teams using flexi front wing technology will be pulled in line with those who are not. Red Bull categorically state they are not affected by the FIA change of regulations coming in Spain and Christian Horner has stated that others will lose some advantage they have over the Red Bull car at present.
Ferrari will return to the mix
With Spain done and dusted, the season will be almost 40% complete. Along the way Red Bull will be bringing upgrades and as they found out last season, its McLaren who now have a target on their back.
Stella hasn’t factored into the equation that Ferrari have been anonymous at the start of this year. As they improve their car and begin to challenge for podiums, this again will assist Max on his quest to become only the second driver behind Michael Schumacher to clam five consecutive F1 titles in a row.
The best driver in the world can compete with other very good drivers all taking points from each other from weekend to weekend. Without a dominant car this is the best scenario Verstappen could hope for, after all he is the best and in general maximises his finishing positions from Grand Prix to Grand Prix.
Verstappen’s brilliance remains the key
McLaren retain an air of complacency about their racing which was evident in 2024. They failed to recognise early enough that Norris was the main challenger to Verstappen not issuing team orders in his favour on two occasions to maintain the “papaya rules” of fairness to each driver in racing scenarios.
For Stella to assume McLaren’s dominance will return after Japan is short sighted for all the reasons explained. As has been the case for Red Bull when they began a season in all conquering fashion, under the current set of car design rules, the competition has closed the gap by the end of the year.
Then of course there is the brilliance of Verstappen, which appears to be worth around 3/10ths a lap when compared to the best of then McLaren duo. His drive in Brazil last year was nothing short of memorising as he carved through the field from P17 to finished ahead of the rest by close to 20 seconds.
And merely due to the genius of Verstappen, he cannot be written of this early as a genuine contender for the 2025 drivers’ title and a record Lewis Hamilton will never equal.
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The new and greener Formula One calendar has seen the start this campaign return to Melbourne before heading logically to China and again to Japan which is also in the Pacific rim. Interference from Ramadan last year saw the first two Grand Prix take place on Saturday’s in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, this year F1 is returning to the Middle East, kind of on its way back home to Europe via Miami.
One advantage of this shift in the calendar is while fans in Europe on the whole sleep, two of the least entertaining circuits are already out of the way for the year. China and Japan often host processional affairs as it turned out the year in both Shanghai and Suzuka.
In fact in the last ten Japanese Grand Prix, only three times has the race been won from pole and on two of those occasions it was a Mercedes’ driver beating the other dominant Mercedes car. There was promise of rain for Sunday and whilst the track was moist when the hit lane opened, come the start of the race there was little water to trouble the drivers who were all on slick tyres….. 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.
