While Red Bull suffered a rare defeat on track at the Miami Grand Prix, their rivals know they will still be difficult to catch. They remain the overwhelming favourites to make it three constructors’ titles in a row this year.
Max Verstappen has started on pole for all six of the races this term, winning four of them. He had to retire with brake issues in Australia and may well have won in Miami were it not for a safety car that played perfectly into the hands of Lando Norris.
McLaren brought an ‘astonishing’ upgrade package to Florida, and Ferrari will respond in Imola with significant updates of their own. But the likelihood is that Verstappen still wins a healthy majority of the remaining 18 races.
Looking ahead to 2025, Red Bull’s rivals may hope that off-track instability at Milton Keynes takes its toll. They have just confirmed that chief technical officer Adrian Newey, one of the biggest names at the team, will leave in the early part of next year.
Former McLaren employee Marc Priestley has heard that other senior figures are now considering their futures too. There’s a possibility that Newey could spark something of an exodus, with the future of Helmut Marko also uncertain.
Rival figures in the F1 paddock may finally feel as if they’re seeing chinks in Red Bull’s armour. Christian Horner recently warned Toto Wolff to focus on Mercedes and stop publicly courting Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen says Zak Brown is trying to sew discontent at Red Bull
Speaking to the Dutch version of Motorsport.com, Verstappen responded to comments from McLaren CEO Zak Brown at the Miami GP. Brown said he was seeing an ‘increase in CVs’ from Red Bull staff, hinting that all is not well.
Mercedes counterpart Wolff corroborated that account, but Verstappen isn’t paying it much mind. He thinks it’s inevitable that top teams will come after Red Bull’s most prized assets, and try to play games in the media.
“He wants to stir things up a bit,” he said of Brown. “As a team we cannot do anything with such statements.
“From Brown’s point of view, I understand it of course, because everyone is trying to attract our people and that is very normal in the world of Formula 1. However, I am not really interested in it.”
Oliver Mintzlaff gets involved amid Red Bull uncertainty
Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff has now intervened amid the ongoing speculation around the world champions. He issued a warning to Wolff, telling him it was ‘impossible’ to prise away Marko, which may be a route to signing Verstappen.
The 26-year-old offered his backing to Mintzlaff in response. But some would read the sudden involvement of such a high-ranking figure as an indication of the degree of concern behind the scenes.
Indeed, Jos Verstappen warned that the team was at risk of ‘falling apart’ following the Newey announcement. His son has doused those flames, but stopped short of definitively ruling out an exit.
Things have rarely been tranquil at Red Bull in recent years. They ended an eight-year drivers’ championship drought through Verstappen in 2021, but an error from race director Michael Masi at the final race in Abu Dhabi helped to hand him a bitterly controversial title.
The following year, it emerged that Horner’s team had exceeded the cost cap amid their battle with Mercedes. It was a minor breach, and so they escaped with a $7m fine and a wind tunnel penalty.
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