The 2025 Formula One season is hitting its stride as the travelling circus rolls into Barcelona for another high-stakes weekend. Early momentum had McLaren looking unstoppable, with many already awarding them this year’s title. In the Constructors’ Championship, an unprecedented collapse — arguably the biggest downfall in F1 history — would now be required for anyone else to snatch the title from their grasp. However, as the spotlight on flexi-wing regulations intensifies, McLaren’s silence on their true impact is beginning to raise questions.
Yet Red Bull have been clear almost since the off in Melbourne that their goal this season is to land their star driver a record equaling fifth consecutive drivers’ title. This is something Lewis Hamilton never achieved given he was hi-jacked inn this mission by his team mate bio Rosberg in 2016.
Only Michael Schumacher at Ferrari has achieved this incredibly difficult feat and it could be argued Schumacher had a more dominant car during his run of titles between 2000-2004 than has Verstappen. Red Bull Racing appear to have accepted they are unable to field a second driver to the world champion who is capable of doing what Hamilton and Antonelli are delivering, which is collecting decent points when compared to the lead driver in the team.
The big FIA rule change comes into force
That said, since the turmoil of the 2024 Sergio Perez season closely followed by the decision to ditch Liam Lawson after just two race weekends this year, Yuki Tsunoda looks to be relatively safe in his ride alongside Verstappen. So the Red Bull mission for the remaining two thirds of the season, is to improve the tricky to drive RB21 but in a way which primarily supports Verstappen’s hunt for glory.
Much has been made of the fact this weekend that the new FIA regulations regarding flexible bodywork will be enforced, something Ferrari and Red Bull believe McLaren and Mercedes have been exploiting further than the rest of the field. Yet until the cars take to the track in competitive fashion on Saturday afternoon, this remains an unknown.
A narrative has developed that Red Bull believe McLaren will lose some of their performance advantage following the new FIA tests in Spain and this is born out of the fact team boss Christian Horner believed the rules should have been implemented from the start of the 2025 season.
Of course if Red Bull believed the rules around flexible front wings had been to their advantage in February, their protest over the delays from the FIA would not have been forthcoming. McLaren too have consistently played down the impact the new FIA tests will have this weekend with team boss Andreas Stella again being asked about the matter last weekend in Monaco.
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McLaren says circuit suits competitors
“Formula 1 is a technical business,” he said. “But obviously some people are good at dropping baits here and there, moving away from the technical facts. It’s up to you to take the bait.” The implication is clear, the Red Bull narrative that McLaren have had an unfair advantage over the first third of this year is the “bait” to which Stella is referring.
Yet the McLaren team boss does believe the field will tighten this weekend, although for completely different reasons to those being suggested by Ferrari and Red Bull. “We head into the Barcelona weekend conscious that the competition is likely to be much tighter this weekend,” Stella said on Friday in the Catalan capital.
“As I briefly mentioned in Monaco, this is a circuit with track characteristics which may suit our competitors very well, which in turn could make the field particularly tight.” Lando Norris expanded on the feeling within the McLaren camp, by noting already this year Red Bull have out performed the Woking based team due to the characteristics of a circuit and the conditions present when the cars were in competition.
“We saw between Miami and Imola for ourselves, we can look like heroes one weekend and then we get beaten the next. And it’s not because anything changed, literally just the track. The car’s the same, the tyres were the same. It’s literally just the track’s different,” said the British driver on Thursday.
Red Bull upgrade may prove mighty
It interesting Norris doesn’t include Japan in his narrative, where Verstappen won his first of the two races this season and this is for good reason. In Suzuka, Max puled out an astonishing qualifying lap to claim pole which meant on Sunday on the newly refurbished track, he was able to hold of the charge of the McLaren’s with ease as tyre degradation failed to become an issue for the teams.
Imola was a completely different t kettle of fish. There Red Bull brought about their first significant upgrade of the season to the RB21, which proved somewhat of a game changer as Verstappen cruised away from the competition to claim the win with ease during the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. This was not the case in Suzuka, where he was hounded to the very last by Lando Norris, coming home just 1.4 seconds clear of the McLaren driver.
In terms of upgrades, McLaren are targeting Austria for their big season improvement to the MCL39, yet this is almost eight weeks away and the F1 landscape may well have shifted by then. The team did try an new floor in Saudi Arabia, but it was tested only by Norris and Piastri in practice and has never seen the late of day since.
Empirical evidence is that McLaren have benefited from their clever flexible bodywork, something first introduced in 2024 and that should the FIA’s new test counter their fair exploitation of the rules, this will cost the team in terms of some level of performance. Yet Stella is now insisting, ‘there’s nothing to see hear’ and in fact it is Red Bull’s improvements which have made the competition even closer.
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Championship leader Oscar Piastri is on message too. “I expect them [Red Bull] to be quick,” said the Australian in Barcelona. “It’s a layout that’s been similar in some characteristics to where they have been quick this year. All the higher speed circuits are generally where Max and Red will have been very strong. And this is another one of those circuits, so I expect them to be definitely in the fight this weekend.”
This view is all part of the Stella messaging which explains the swings in performance between McLaren and their rivals has been largely a function of the characteristics of the cars, different circuit layouts and the all important conditions. Yet this is too simplistic an explanation and the notion that Red Bull have not been hard at work with their in season car development as usual is being ignored.
The team from Milton Keynes is probably the best in the field at regularly improving their car between the first and last F1 race weekends each year, and 2025 is no different. The Imola upgrade for Red Bull may in fact prove pivotal in terms of where the drivers’ title ends up come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.
“Marginal”? That’s all it takes
In Miami when the weather was warm and tyre management key, McLaren destroyed Red Bull’s efforts with Verstappen trailing home almost 40 seconds behind race winner Oscar Piastri. Yet just two weeks later and with their new floor, Red Bull in warm conditions where tyre management was key wiped the4 floor with McLaren. Only a late safety car prevented the winning margin for Verstappen several times larger than it was.
Should the Red Bull potential seen in Imola come to pass in Barcelona, it will be difficult to analysis how much pain McLaren have suffered from the new FIA technical directive coming into force. But despite Stella’s protestations that the FIA’s new ruling will make a marginal difference to McLaren, the margins in F1 are incredibly tight with all but one pole positions being won by around just 1/10th of a second.
For those F1 fans rooting for a different winning driver in 29025, Barcelona is an absolute key moment in the season to date. Red Bull with a car that is clearly inferior to that of Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes have hing it out tough over the first third of the year and with Verstappen yet just 25 points behind the leading driver, the fight back is on as the European racing season swings into full flow.
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More than a decade after Michael Schumacher’s devastating skiing accident, the world remains largely in the dark about his true health status. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has been shielded from the public eye ever since his fall in Méribel in December 2013 — a fall that nearly claimed his life and irreversibly changed it.
Access to Schumacher is tightly restricted by his family today, with only a handful of individuals permitted into his inner circle. While some old allies from the paddock have been granted visits, one notable name continues to keep his distance — by choice.
Flavio Briatore, one of the most important figures in Schumacher’s early career with Benneton and now the boss of Alpine, has revealed why he has never visited his former driver and long-time friend since the life-altering accident. In a candid interview with RTL, Briatore shared his heartfelt reasoning: he wants to preserve the powerful image he has of Michael, rather than confronting the fragile version he imagines now exists…. READ MORE
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.
