Red Bull remains cautious of recovery: "McLaren killed us in Zandvoort"

Red Bull is flying high after Max Verstappen won back-to-back Formula 1 races and Yuki Tsunoda picked up his best result of the year at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but team boss Laurent Mekies remains wary of the might of McLaren.

Verstappen registered the greatest winning margin of the year with his 19-second lead over second-placed Lando Norris in Monza, and the Dutchman further closed the points gap to the two McLaren drivers with another commanding win in Baku.

However, while many paddock insiders have claimed this signals a resurgence from Red Bull, Mekies isn’t so sure and says the team is still taking things “race by race”.  

“I think we probably feel today that some of the good stuff we have seen in Monza, we found here again,” Mekies said following the Azerbaijan GP.

“Certainly, in the slow-speed corners of Baku, [and] there are only slow-speed corners here, it's very low downforce, it worked very well for us – which is a different equation to Monza, so that's the good news.”  

Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing

The bad news, however, is that the RB21 still has its weaknesses, which haven’t all been addressed with the rollout of components like a new floor that Red Bull used from Monza. The team remains susceptible to high temperatures and high downforce tracks, meaning that its current form may not continue across the remaining seven races in the 2025 season - especially at the next race in Singapore.

“We take the challenge of Singapore, it's a track that's been challenging for the team for many, many years,” Mekies added.  

“And in the context of what we are trying to see, it's very, very important to see what suddenly doesn't work there anymore. 

"Then, after trying to take it to the next step, you will be back to tracks with medium-speed corners, where we were killed by McLaren two races ago in Zandvoort. The gap was very significant. Also in Spa – we left Spa thinking that they were half a second faster than us, even though Max won the sprint.”  

Like most of the grid, Red Bull has limited the development of its 2025 machinery to focus on preparations for F1’s reset in 2026, which means upgrades will be few and far between for the remaining races.  

Red Bull was

Instead, changes are being made to the way the team operates, with a greater emphasis being put on driver feedback to set up its cars, and Tsunoda spent extensive time in the simulator following a disastrous Monza race to attempt to unlock more performance.  

"We do not think, in the team, that there is a silver bullet with a single aspect,” Mekies explained when asked if the changes had unlocked something in the RB21. “We think there is a combination of a lot of small details that have extracted more performance out of the car.  

“And of course, a part of that is the Monza floor, a part of that is some of the changes we have made. And the extent of that competitiveness, again, in different circumstances, honestly, we don't know. We are hopeful, but we will soon find out.”  

Hopeful or not, Mekies remains adamant that his team doesn’t “even look at it from a constructor perspective,” and instead says Red Bull is committed to understanding the troublesome RB21 better.  

If, while doing this, it can turn around its results and secure second in the standings, with just an 18-point gap to second-placed Mercedes, then that’s a happy coincidence.

How Max Verstappen talked Red Bull into race-winning Baku F1 strategy

Yuki Tsunoda reveals key to best 2025 F1 result at Azerbaijan GP

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