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Red Bull Panics After Bahrain GP as Verstappen Struggles
The 2025 Formula 1 season kicked off with a shocking twist at the Bahrain Grand Prix, leaving Red Bull Racing reeling. After dominating the past two seasons with ease, the reigning champions were stunned as Max Verstappen, their star driver, struggled to keep up with the pace—finishing well off the podium. This unexpected performance has triggered internal concern within the team, with many questioning whether Red Bull’s grip on the sport is beginning to slip.
From the very first practice session in Bahrain, Verstappen appeared out of sync with the RB21. Grip issues, poor tire degradation, and inconsistent pace plagued the Dutchman’s weekend. While teammate Sergio Perez managed to salvage a respectable P5 finish, Verstappen crossed the line in a distant seventh, his worst start to a season since joining Red Bull in 2016.
Behind the scenes, alarm bells are ringing. Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner admitted in post-race interviews that the team was “caught off guard” by the performance drop. “We expected to be competitive here. The data looked good during testing, but clearly something isn’t translating to race pace,” Horner said. “We need to get to the bottom of it quickly.”
Speculation is mounting about what went wrong. Some insiders suggest that Red Bull’s aggressive new aerodynamic package may have backfired, offering less stability in real-world conditions than anticipated. Others point to possible power unit calibration issues, with the new technical regulations for 2025 requiring subtle but crucial adjustments. Verstappen himself was visibly frustrated, saying, “The car just wasn’t behaving the way I needed it to. We tried different setups, but it never felt right.”
Meanwhile, rivals Mercedes and Ferrari looked revitalized. Lewis Hamilton stormed to a dominant victory, with Charles Leclerc right behind him. Both teams appear to have made significant gains in the off-season, closing the performance gap that Red Bull once enjoyed. If this trend continues, the 2025 season could see a genuine three-way title fight—something F1 fans have been eagerly hoping for.
Red Bull’s technical team has already flown back to Milton Keynes to conduct a full post-mortem. Urgency is high, with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix just a week away. Engineers are working overtime, analyzing telemetry, wind tunnel results, and race data to identify what went wrong in Bahrain. Red Bull cannot afford to fall behind this early in the season, especially with the field looking more competitive than ever.
While it’s too early to count Verstappen or Red Bull out, Bahrain has exposed cracks in what many thought was an unshakable foundation. Whether this was a one-off blip or the beginning of a more serious decline remains to be seen. One thing is certain—2025 may not be the cakewalk Red Bull expected, and the team must now fight harder than ever to stay at the front of the pack.