Red Bull does not look as comfortable as it normally is heading into a new season, having completed the fewest laps of all the teams during Formula 1 pre-season testing.
Max Verstappen’s fastest lap was only good enough for second quickest, having struggled for most of the day with the conditions in the RB21.
Ted Kravitz explained why Verstappen’s first push lap in the RB21 was so crucial for Red Bull, as a lot fo the car has changed on the underside compared to the RB20 in a bid to improve their car’s drivability, after Verstappen found it hard last season.
The car looked noticeably edgy, with Verstappen struggling with corner turn-in at key points of the Bahrain circuit including Turns 8, 10 and 14.
Despite the mixed start to the season, Red Bull’s Helmut Marko spoke to journalists and gave his assessment on where he thinks they are in the pecking order according to Motorsport Magazin’s Christian Menath.
Helmut Marko sees Red Bull as ‘on par with McLaren’ in 2025
Red Bull did not complete a race run throughout the entire three days, with only Liam Lawson setting times on the C1 and C2 tyre on high fuel and Verstappen completing a stint on the C3 tyre on the morning of the third day.
Telemetry data from Lawson’s fastest laps compared to Charles Leclerc on the second day shows that Red Bull is hiding a lot of its pace in the high-speed corners, which could mean they are running a mixture of low engine maps and high fuel.
When asked by journalists where he thinks Red Bull stands among the other teams, Marko gave a surprising answer.
“Helmut Marko sees Red Bull as being on par with McLaren on race trim and one lap. Red Bull didn’t do any long runs on Friday, but they did on the first day which makes it difficult to judge,” said Menath.
Red Bull floor test ‘wasn’t successful’ on third day with Max Verstappen
Red Bull brought its new front wing, which makes use of the leading edge more and connects the nose to the second element, on the third day of testing.
Verstappen only ran it in the afternoon part of the session, with the team doing back-to-back tests with the floor. However, these tests did not go to plan according to Menath.
“In the afternoon there was longer reconstruction work at Red Bull. We heard that the underbody was being filed down again and apparently an old underbody was then refitted at Red Bull,” added Menath.
“They are being a bit secretive and didn’t want to confirm anything, but we hear that the test wasn’t successful and that’s why the underbody came off again.”
It appears Red Bull has a lot of work it needs to do in the weeks leading up to to Melbourne if they want to arrive comfortably on par with McLaren, but all signs show they are closer than we think.
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