Improvements planned at Red Bull over the next few races to catch up with McLaren
Despite a good performance at the Australian Grand Prix, the Austrian team is aware that the gap to McLaren is wide. To close the gap, the team has already announced that changes will be made between the third and fifth Grand Prix.
An underdog position for Red Bull. For the first time since 2022, the Milton Keynes team does not start the season with a victory and is even in third place in the constructors’ championship, behind McLaren and Mercedes. On the drivers’ side, Lando Norris ended Max Verstappen’s 1029-day streak at the top of the F1 championship, a figure that dated back to the Spanish Grand Prix in 2022 when he took the lead following Charles Leclerc’s retirement.
Statistics that reflect a simple observation: McLaren is the fastest car at the start of this season. If the Dutchman managed to cross the finish line in second place, right behind Norris, it was mainly due to multiple interventions that allowed the pack to regroup and the aerodynamic damage suffered by the British driver. In fact, after his mistake on the 17th lap, which handed second place to Piastri, the Dutchman could do nothing to keep up with the pace of the orange cars, at one point being 18 seconds behind and sometimes lapping a second slower.
Issues already identified on the Red Bull
For the quadruple world champion, this situation highlighted the superiority of the Woking team and the weaknesses of Red Bull. “If you look at the first stint, we were quite far off,” he explained to the media, including Racefans. “As soon as the tires started overheating, we had no chance. McLaren simply took off. We still have a lot of work to do to fight for a victory.”
For the Dutchman, the main problem with the Red Bull lies in its tire management, explaining that as soon as the tires overheated, the car became much more difficult to drive, which then led to errors. I saw it coming. I was struggling with my tires. It was similar to [Saturday]. The intermediates are even softer, so even more prone to overheating. That’s where we—and many other teams—are struggling compared to McLaren. They simply do a better job with it. That’s what we need to work on.
A gap with McLaren that needs to be filled
The Austrian team, through Helmut Marko, has announced that improvements are already planned around the third to fifth race to catch up and threaten McLaren in the championship. The Austrian also stated that this cannot be resolved so quickly and that the team will not be able to gain several tenths in one go. Furthermore, the director of the Austrian team, Christian Horner, admitted that the next race will be more difficult, as Red Bull does not really excel on the Shanghai circuit (only 2 wins in 20 years: Vettel in 2009 and Ricciardo in 2018).
« I think it’s difficult to set expectations ahead of China. This circuit has never really played to our strengths, even on our best days. The fact that we’ve only won this race twice in 20 years shows that it is quite a challenging circuit for us. I think we are looking forward to going to China and learning more about the car or some of its limitations. » The Briton also mentioned the McLarens they see « very fast » in China.
Verstappen: Norris’s main rival in 2025?
Despite everything, confidence reigns at Red Bull. Max Verstappen indicated that the pace is good compared to the teams behind us. If the Milton Keynes team is the second force on the grid, a duel between the Dutchman and the papaya-colored cars should once again animate the next Grand Prix. See you this weekend in Shanghai for the second round of the season.
