What is going on at Red Bull Racing?

Going into the Japanese Grand Prix, the biggest excitement was of Yuki Tsunoda finally getting a well-deserved chance at the Red Bull second seat. While Liam Lawson returned to his seat at Visa Cash App Racing bulls aside Isaac Hadjar. The excitement arrived and ended with Yuki realising just how bad of a car the Red Bull is and Liam Lawson probably quite glad to be back in a stable car – despite the demotion.

Yuki Tsunoda at Suzuka International circuit

This leads us into one of the biggest takeaways from the Bahrain Grand Prix though, as world champion Max Verstappen finished in p6 and Yuki Tsunoda in p9. A sad result for a team who are supposed to be championship contenders. The quick decision of swapping Lawson and Tsunoda was one of the biggest red flags to signal how bad things really must be in the Red Bull camp. Cracks had arguably been starting to creek open much before that move but as the domino effect evolves, the ‘this could happen’ problems are beginning to become real.

Ted Kravitz from the SkySports segment, ‘Teds Notebook’ reported Max Verstappen’s manager, Raymond Vermeullen “came into the Red Bull garage and gave Helmut Marko what can only be described as a piece of his mind… clearly they are not happy”. This comes after a difficult race with Verstappen complaining that “everything went wrong” on the car’s performance during the Bahrain race – a complete 360 from his win in Japan.

Fast forward to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend and Red Bull fans were washed with such mixed emotions. From an incredible pole position for Max in qualifying to one red bull in the wall, and the other carrying so much conflict from lap one of the race that it’s hard to believe Max even made it onto the podium.

Max Verstappen and FIA President after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2025

Both Red Bull drivers were hit with chaos in to lap one of the Saudi race as Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly collided into the wall leaving their cars too damaged to continue while Max found himself with a 5 second penalty after conflict with Piastri. While Yuki described his incident as ‘unfortunate’, Verstappen was much more tight lipped on his incident. It’s hard to say whether a few words from the FIA president was the reason for this or if the driver was just purely disappointed that he did not manage to maintain a win from his pole position. Something that he knows he should have been able to do, but that mistake cost him – penalty or not; he underestimated Oscar Piastri. Verstappen kept his words limited but his emotions were clear as his world champion hopes slowly diminish with Piastri now overtaking to the top of the drivers’ championship for the first time in his career.

We are only five races into the season, and it seems like there has been complaints after complaints about the Red Bull car, the way situations have been handled within the blue team and constant unnecessary quotes and headlines from Helmet Marko. The PR team seem to have no idea how to play their cards and what was once a top team, now really need to step up their game.