Red Bull could be in for a difficult start to the season after Martin Brundle claimed Max Verstappen was “angry” when his RB21 went spinning during pre-season testing.

The F1 2025 championship gets underway this Friday in Melbourne when the teams take to the Albert Park street circuit for Free Practice one.

What Martin Brundle ‘didn’t sense’ with the Red Bull RB21

They were given a small, although not convincing, preview during pre-season testing where McLaren’s MCL39 caught the eye while Sauber’s C45 failed to impress.

As for Red Bull, they had a few niggles with the World Championship-winning team completing the three days with the least laps of all 10 teams.

The Milton Keynes squad, by their own admission, did not have “as smooth a test as we expected”, with technical director Pierre Wache saying the car “did not respond how we wanted at times”.

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It has pundits, including Brundle, rubbing their hands together in anticipation of an all-out ding-dong battle for this year’s championship titles.

“We’re expecting one of the all-time classic Formula 1 seasons and there’s nothing that we saw in the pre-season test in Bahrain that changed our minds,” said Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle.

“The top four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – are incredibly close.”

Surprisingly though, given Verstappen’s four-season reign, one of the big questions ahead of the F1 2025 season is, how will Red Bull fare?

Having won 21 of 22 races in 2023, last year the team managed just nine wins in a season that included a 10-race winless streak. That was Verstappen and Red Bull’s longest absence from the top step of the podium since 2020.

Red Bull did not walk away from pre-season testing feeling particularly confident as Helmut Marko admitted they’re “two to three-tenths” down on McLaren while Verstappen said he did “not think we can fight for the win in Melbourne”.

He added: “We still have work to do. At the moment one team is clearly in front. If you look at the lap times, then I think McLaren is the favourite.

“On our side, not everything went completely smoothly, but on the other hand we have some ideas on how to improve.”

Brundle agrees that Red Bull still have work to do to improve the RB21 as while it has eradicated some of its predecessor’s niggles, it’s not the best car on track.

“It looked okay in Bahrain at the test,” he said. “They were saying that they’ve fixed a lot of last year’s problems, but we also saw Max out on track, shaking his head once and spinning up the wheels because he was angry the car went around on him.

“I didn’t sense it was exactly glued to the race-track but they were pretty tricky conditions in that pre-season test.”

But despite that, he reckons Verstappen remains the favourite to make it five from five.

“For me, Max starts the season as the favourite because he will be clear number one in that team and Red Bull should have fixed it. He’s so fast, he’s so good,” said the former F1 driver. “He knows how to win multiple championships – so does Lewis.

“His main rivals so far don’t know how to win any F1 World Championships – Charles, George, Lando, Oscar Piastri too.

“I think Max should start the season [as the favourite]. Whoever wins this year’s World Championship will win a binding World Championship.”

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