Max Verstappen gives a grave forecast for Red Bull and their F1 2025 title chances as he predicts they will be unable to catch McLaren, unless they add considerably more pace to their car; despite victory in Japan.
The four-time comes into the F1 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix off the back of an impressive win at the Japanese GP on April 6, where he out-performed by Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The McLaren cars were unable to attack the 27-year-old and his RB21 as he took his first win since December 2024, and moved up to second place in the Formula 1 standings behind Norris by just one point.
Fresh off the back of the triumph, there is a buzz that the defending champion is back in the mix for the rest of the season; but Verstappen doesn’t think so as he gives a grave forecast for Red Bull and their F1 2025 title chances.
“No, we definitely need to improve to be able to fight for a for a title,” Verstappen told F1 TV. “I mean, it’s great that we are one point behind.
“But I think it’s more that we just maximized our weekends quite well so far; to really fight for a title we need to find more performance and we know that.”
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Why could Verstappen and Red Bull struggle at the F1 2025 Bahrain GP?
Red Bull could find themselves on the back foot at the Bahrain International Circuit due to the extremely different demands of the track compared to Suzuka, such as longer straights, more DRS zones and higher tyre degradation.
The latter condition particularly is expected to play into the hands of the McLaren’s Norris and Piastri, as their car seems to only become quicker relative to the field as the stints go on.
And additionally, if the Dutchman manages to get ahead of the cars then they will be able to bypass the dirty air impact through DRS to mount challenges into Turn 1, Turn 4 and Turn 11 – or create a net beneficial tyre offset.
However, slightly slower cars can still upset the script in Bahrain as Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes demonstrated in 2021 through clever strategic moves to just about outfox Red Bull and Verstappen to the finish line after 57 laps.
