Coulthard sheds light on Red Bull and Verstappen's struggles in 2025

Red Bull Racing started the 2025 Formula 1 season on the back foot, behind McLaren in terms of pure speed. From the get-go, the RB21 lacked balance and top speed, making it difficult to drive even for Verstappen. Despite the ongoing challenges with the car, the four-time world champion has been maximising his results, currently leaving him on P3 in the standings with four podiums and two wins in seven races.

Although Red Bull has managed to find some speed through upgrades and changes in the set-up, the team isn’t yet where it aspires to be. In an interview with GPBlog, Karun Chandhok mentioned that he doesn’t quite agree with the narrative that Red Bull is struggling in 2025. After all, Verstappen still manages to win races. Coulthard, however, has a different opinion. “Relative to their all-dominant championship year, you could use the word struggling”, he says in an exclusive interview with GPBlog.

He adds that the competition has simply refined its performance, and that McLaren now has the fastest package in F1. “You can definitely say that Red Bull has been able to hold its own in qualifying due to the Max Factor”, Coulthard continued. “That's great, but in racing, the McLaren has been faster. So is [Red Bull] struggling relative to McLaren? Yeah. Struggling relative to Ferrari and Mercedes? No.”

One thing that doesn’t help Red Bull is the fact that the Austrian team has had to fully rely on Max Verstappen in the constructors' championship, as both Liam Lawson and his successor Yuki Tsunoda have not been able to fight for podiums alongside him. “I think that they’re third on the constructors because of the lack of performance from the other car”, Coulthard says, before adding: “But to make a long answer short: they're struggling more than they were. But I think that consistently being on the podium and winning Grands Prix against a faster package with two drivers that are consistently performing is still a good place to be struggling.”

Coulthard adds that 2025 might not be the year for Verstappen and Red Bull, as he deems McLaren to be the more likely winner for this year. “But it doesn't make him lesser. It doesn't mean that the team are trying less hard. It doesn't mean that Red Bull are failing, per se.” According to Coulthard, it’s a hard situation to be in for a driver and a team.

“You look at McLaren for all those years, they were nowhere. Ferrari, the biggest name in Formula One, has kind of not been nailing it. How the hell can Ferrari not win consistently?” the three-time Monaco Grand Prix winner voices. “When you've got all of that global support and all of that potential..."

“Why did Aston Martin manage to persuade Adrian Newey, but Ferrari couldn't? Was it numbers?” He deems that unlikely, considering the team convinced Lewis Hamilton to join the team, which couldn’t have been cheap. However, he does know from experience that teams are often more prepared to pay a high sum for a driver than for a member of staff.