Max Verstappen doubts Red Bull will be able to fight for victory in the Formula 1 season opener, having expected more from its 2025 car in pre-season testing.
Red Bull’s goal was to make its car’s set-up window wider this year after encountering problems with its balance as it introduced upgrades through the 2024 season.
It had an inconsistent three days of testing in Bahrain, though - as it ran lots of experiments on its new RB21, seeking to understand the car and experiment with various changes.
Verstappen did not complete a full race simulation in Bahrain, while team-mate Liam Lawson lost some time on his full day in the RB21 due to a water leak.
Various aero tests in the final part of the day combined with the removal of a floor upgrade meant Red Bull’s position at the end of the test was ‘quick, but difficult’ at best.
F1’s Dutch broadcaster Viaplay has now shared an interview with Verstappen, via video link from Monza where his GT team is testing, in which the four-time world champion admits to expecting a tricky start to the year.
Verstappen admitted he does not think Red Bull “can compete for the win in Melbourne” but hopes for “some improvements within a few races”.
When asked if he was happy with the steps made with the car over the winter, Verstappen laughed and replied: “Well, it's never good enough, of course! But yes, I think we ourselves perhaps expected a little bit more in Bahrain.”
He is also understood to have suggested in the interview that the understeer he suffered with last year was a little less prominent but still there.
Verstappen’s words conflict with his slightly more optimistic early outlook during the test itself, when he had initially reported there had only been positive surprises from the car and it was giving him what he needed.
By the end of the test, though, some signs of frustration were clear. And the comments broadcast on Viaplay are consistent with a feeling from Red Bull that there might be some damage limitation to do early on until the car is optimised to its full potential, which it believes should be enough to fight for wins again.
Verstappen hinted that Red Bull’s post-test analysis had already identified how to better set the car up, which is knowledge that can be deployed for the start of the season, yet he still believes Red Bull will be lacking a little.
This is consistent with technical director Pierre Wache’s admission at the end of the Bahrain test that it had not been a “smooth” pre-season, and his suggestion Red Bull was starting on the back foot.
“I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction,” said Wache.
“Just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.”
Red Bull’s issues in developing the 2024 car combined with rivals making big steps especially with greater exploitation of aeroelasticity in their front and rear wings, caused Red Bull’s form to slump dramatically from a dominant start.
Though Verstappen was able to secure his fourth consecutive world championship, Red Bull was comfortably beaten in the constructors’ fight and his team-mate Sergio Perez was dropped at the end of the year.
Verstappen complained repeatedly in the middle of the season that some at Red Bull were not awake to the threat it faced and had not taken his concerns about the car seriously enough.
Some progress was made in the final part of the year with what the team calls effectively a ‘patch’ on the 2024 car to make it slightly more user-friendly at the cost of performance.
Its hope for 2025 is that the car is faster but also gives the drivers more confidence and has a broader working range.
