Troubled Red Bull search for path back to fast lane Today Sports News

Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing looks on on the grid during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit on April 13, 2025 in Bahrain, Bahrain.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Ailing Red Bull arrives on the Red Sea for this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah desperate to prevent its 2025 season sinking into mediocrity.

The Austrian Formula One giant left Bahrain on Sunday in sombre mood, its limitations laid bare under the harsh floodlights in the desert of Sakhir.

Here AFP Sport assesses the issues that threaten to derail Max Verstappen’s quest for a fifth successive world title:

Verstappen slipped to third in the drivers’ standings, eight points behind McLaren’s leader Lando Norris, after trailing in sixth, over half a minute behind Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri, in Bahrain.

He has accounted for all bar two of the team’s tally in the constructors’ championship where it is lagging a massive 80 points behind runaway leader McLaren after just four races.

Crisis talks

As McLaren celebrated its third win from four in Sakhir, Red Bull convened a ‘crisis’ meeting involving its top brass.

Team principal Christian Horner, influential advisor Helmut Marko, technical director Pierre Wache, and chief engineer Paul Monaghan met to mull over the team’s plight.

Horner, in a post-race media encounter in Red Bull’s hospitality tent, had offered a blunt appraisal of where they were at.

“This race has exposed some pitfalls that are obviously very clear that we need to get on top of very quickly. Ultimately you can mask it a little through set-up and we were able to achieve that last weekend in Suzuka. We understand where the issues are, it’s introducing the solutions that obviously takes a little more time,” he said.

Verstappen, who was plum last at one stage at the Bahrain Grand Prix, lamented that “basically everything went wrong”.

“It’s of course not what we want, but it’s just where we are at with our car and the tyre behaviour that we have with the car. Everything is just highlighted even more on a track like this,” added the Dutchman.

Red Bull would be in even worse shape if it wasn’t for Verstappen’s combative brilliance in cajoling a problematic car to fight with quicker rivals like McLaren and Mercedes.

His win in Japan in the first leg of this month’s triple header was only down to arguably his greatest ever qualifying performance.

The machine’s idiosyncrasies proved too tough a riddle to solve for the unfortunate Liam Lawson, who was unceremoniously dropped to their sister team RB after just two races. The Kiwi’s successor Yuki Tsunoda finished out of the points in Suzuka before adding two from ninth place in Sakhir.

Without an effective ‘wingman’ to help him in races Verstappen is left to do it all on his own.

It can surely be no coincidence that Red Bull’s malaise comes after some of its brightest brains have jumped ship.

The team was shocked when legendary Design guru Adrian Newey quit to join Aston Martin.

Another huge loss was the departure of Sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, who took up his new role as Sauber team principal this month. Red Bull’s head of race strategy Will Courtenay also left, for McLaren, where former chief designer Rob Marshall had moved to in 2023.

Max’s future?

Verstappen, who has been with the Red Bull family since 2015, has a deal running until 2028.

In an interview with AFP in Mexico last October he said it was “definitely” his intention to see out his time at Red Bull, despite the tension surrounding Horner last season after he was accused of inappropriate conduct towards a woman colleague.

Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing ahead of the 2024 season-opener but the off-track scandal rumbled on for weeks.

Yet on Monday, Marko dropped a bombshell, telling Sky Germany he has “great concern” that unless Red Bull ups its game, Verstappen could up sticks.