If Max Verstappen leaves Red Bull are they in even greater trouble than just losing their star driver? It seems like they’d be losing the only person who can drive their car, a situation that’s seemingly self-inflicted. Are they likely to be making their 2026 car more driveable to mitigate this risk? – Tom
One of the most interesting aspects of the Lawson-Tsunoda driver swap is that it gives another perspective on the state Red Bull are in with their car.
Verstappen believes it is the fourth quickest car in F1 at the moment – so behind the McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. Although on average qualifying pace in the three sessions so far, it is actually second fastest behind the McLaren.
But it may be that it is only both of those things with Verstappen in it.
The issue for Red Bull is that they have one genius-level driver and one average one, in F1 terms – and that remains the case with Tsunoda in the second seat, or at least that’s what most would believe right now.
So it’s almost a case of split the difference between the drivers to judge the level of the car.
The bottom line seems to be that the new Red Bull is simply not that good a car, and certainly one which is unpredictable and does not generate confidence in a driver. Even Verstappen finds it difficult to drive – but he is so good that he is able to coax a good lap time out of it.
Verstappen is regarded by most as the best driver in F1 at the moment – so if that’s true, it stands to reason that the car would be worse with pretty much anyone else in it.
It seems Red Bull have chased peak aerodynamic performance at the expense of drivability – which is ironic, because that is exactly the opposite of the philosophy that Adrian Newey has championed throughout his career.
Legendary designer Newey, who stopped working on Red Bull in F1 last April, and has just come to the end of his first month with Aston Martin, has always believed that it was better to have slightly less downforce that the driver can use all of, than more theoretical downforce that can’t be accessed because the car is too “peaky”. Or, as Lawson put it, the “window” is too narrow.
Like all teams, Red Bull designed the best car they could for the new season. The question that hangs over them now is, do they know how to fix it?
