Last Updated on May 17 2025, 7:45 am
However this formula One season turns out, Red Bull Racing are the team who aced the ‘ground effect’ era of F1 car design. Having clinched his maiden F1 title in 2021 on the last lap of the last race, Verstappen has set off in hot pursuit of F1 records aplenty and chasing down his bitter rival, Lewis Hamilton, in terms of all time Grand Prix wins.
Despite the shenanigans over their second driver, Red Bull have made it clear they have one objective this year and it is to facilitate Max Verstappen’s fifth consecutive F1 drivers’ title. Only one driver has ever achieved this and it isn’t Lewis Hamilton. Michael Schumacher won fiche ties in a row with Ferrari between 2000-2005.
“We have this huge motivation to achieve this fifth title,” Marko told the BBC in April. “Our goal is to win a fifth consecutive title (for Max Verstappen),” he said. “We failed to achieve this with Vettel.”
McLaren domination continues
Red Bull Racing’s current era of winning peaked in 2023 as the team and Verstappen smashed long standing F1 records left, right and centre, with Max winning more consecutive Grand Prix than any other driver in history, with ten. Carlos Sainz stopped any further progression with a win in Singapore.
Across the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Max won 34 out of the 45 Grand Prix missing out on a podium finish at just seven GP weekends. Yet Miami 2024 proved to be a turning point as McLaren turned their poorly performing MCL38 into a carriage for Lando Norris’ maiden F1 race victory and from thereon Verstappen had a real fight on his hands.
Max failed to win for ten race weekends last year, before finally his genius came fully to the fore in Brazil. In torrential conditions Verstappen carved his way through the field from P17 to take the win in Sao Paulo by over twenty seconds.
Clearly Verstappen does not have the fastest car this year and his single Grand Prix win in Japan has been the only defeat for the McLaren team in 2025. Yet Max’s skills have been evident on Saturdays as his three pole positions are more than either the McLaren drivers have managed as of yet. The rise of the Woking team began just over a year ago with Norris dethroning Verstappen in Australia from his three year reign at the top of the championship.
Horner targets merely a podium in Imola
McLaren have won five of the six Grand Prix this year and in Miami their dominance appeared greater than ever with Piastri winning the race by over 30 seconds from second place George Russell. Speaking to Sky Sport’s ahead of the Imola action, team boss Christian Horner admitted despite their substantial upgrades to the RB21 it would be “very, very hard” to beat McLaren this weekend. As such, he’s already willing to accept a podium.
With Red Bull celebrating their 400th F1 race weekend here in imola and Christian Horner was asked what a satisfactory result would be come Sunday. “To beat the McLarens would be an incredible result and achievement, but that’s going to be very, very hard. I think if we were on the podium here at the 400th race, we’d sign for that.”
This poor outlook will remind Verstappen of the years he was chasing Lewis Hamilton in his dominant Mercedes, yet no team is top of the pile forever and Max will be hoping McLaren’s dominance ends soon.
Yet Red Bull need to turn their fortunes around quickly, and in free practice two it was again the McLaren’s who topped the time sheets a whopping four tenths of a second quicker than the world champion could manage. However, Red Bull are the masters of dealing in their car over Friday night with extensive simulator work going on back in Milton Keynes.
A repeat of Imola 2024?
Now 32 points behind Piastri, a P3 for Max in Imola and another win for the Australian would see Verstappen’s hopes of a fifth consecutive title diminish further. Then 42 points behind the championship leader, Red Bull would need to deliver a car capable of winning two races in quick succession and even then should Oscar finish in just third place, his lead would remain at 22 points.
Much hope has been placed on the fact a new FIA technical directive will come into force in Barcelona, which will test the flexibility of the F1 car’s wings in a different fashion. The theory is this is where McLaren’s advantage lies and come Barcelona they will fall back closer to the chasing pack.
Verstappen isn’t paying much attention to this much hyped paddock theory and believes the real focus for Red Bull is matching McLaren in how they manage their tyre wear. On the long runs in FP2 today, Verstappen noted “the McLaren’s drive right past me,” something which does not bode well for the Grand Prix on Sunday.
Lando Norris was cautious after the results of Friday’s practice suggesting, “we always look better in FP2 than in qualifying,” something Max will be hoping is a repeat of last year. There Verstappen stole the pole in a last minute final push to steal the starting position of P1 from Lando Norris in the dying seconds of qualifying.
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“Tough today” says Max
Despite having a quicker car, Norris could not find a way past the Red Bull driver come Sunday, as the twisty and narrow circuit of Imola proved as difficult to overtake as always. Verstappen’s hope for the weekend is that he can pull some of the same magic as he’s shown on Saturday afternoon’s this year and add to his three pole positions collected so far this season.
“We tried a lot of bits,” said a downbeat Max after the session. “Some were better than others, but overall [we’re] not fast enough at the moment.”
Speaking of his hopes of another win in Italy, verstappen said: “At the moment not very high. We definitely need a bit more work to get a better true corner balance, to go faster. I think it’s the same in the long runs. I got overtaken by the McLarens, so that says enough. They pull away.
“But even then, compared to other teams around us, I think at the moment it was a bit tough today.”
Newey makes fresh demand of Aston Martin
MORE F1 NEWS – Question marks raised over Ferrari technical director
Since the departure of Adrian Newey was announced, Red Bull Racing have been the Formula One team under there microscope in terms of suffering a ‘brain drain.’ The team not only lost their guru F1 car designer but over the past couple of seasons have seen other key individuals leave the team.
Rob Marshall left and joined McLaren at the start of 2024 and is believed to have been highly influential in turning around their poorly performing car at the start of last season, into one which saw the Woking based F1 team claim their first constructors’ championship since 1998.
Marshall is credited with engineering skills which may be behind the flexing ‘non-flexible’ body work McLaren are repeatedly accused of utilising. Jonathan Wheatley recently joined the Sauber/Audi F1 project as team principal having left his role as Sporting Director at Red Bull and recent poor performances from the pit stop crew have been put down to th loss of Wheatley’s trackside presence…. 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.
