Amid the current rumours and speculations, Red Bull’s prodigy Max Verstappen is having one of his most frustrating F1 seasons in 2025. The reigning world champion faced a tough first half of the campaign, which included his first DNF since the Australian GP in 2024. While in past years he would already hold a significant advantage over the rest of the grid in terms of points, he now sits third in the 2025 Championship after 12 races.
In comparison with the dominance he showcased in the previous seasons, Verstappen has lacked the car to back him up in 2025. Furthermore, the RB21 showed increasingly unfortunate issues with both oversteering and understeering, as well as a general balance problem. The Dutchman constantly had complaints on the radio during races and other sessions, with nothing going according to his expectations. Moreover, Red Bull Racing has had multiple attempts at regaining the lead and fixing these issues, with no success.
Foreshadowing start
The Australian GP marked the start of a very discouraging 2025 F1 season for Verstappen. He fought the two McLaren drivers who are currently leading in the driver standings. The Red Bull driver could match their pace and outdo the two in experience and precision in 2024. Yet, the new cars put McLaren at a clear advantage. This was only the beginning of the Dutchman’s struggle.
By the Chinese GP, Verstappen was already out of the top 3 at the end of the race. However, this series of misfortunes was broken up by a great win in Japan. The celebrations did not last for long. In Bahrain, Max Verstappen crossed the chequered flag in P6, taking one of his lowest points finishes so far in F1 in 2025. He was visibly frustrated after some bad strategy decisions and pit stops. Additionally, this was also around the time when tensions in the Red Bull garage started to grow.
His greatest couple of races of the season
Following those conflicting first races, Verstappen regained some valuable points in the 2025 F1 Saudi Arabia GP. Regardless, his pole-to-win ratio suffered as he was unable to hold on to that P1 in race conditions as a penalty cost him victory by cutting turn 1 at the start.
While the Dutchman proved he could hold his weight on track, the lack of pace always had him lose out to the faster McLaren. The Miami GP was not much to write home about either. Verstappen fell behind the two Papaya drivers once again.
All of his attempts to regain his place as P1 were failing Max Verstappen. Nevertheless, some sunshine broke through the clouds of disappointment as the Red Bull driver pulled a masterclass and surprised everyone at the Imola GP. He had an incredible Sunday in Italy, which helped him keep the McLarens in touch in the standings.
The triple-header went on to Monaco. The streets of Monte Carlo held a new mandatory 2 pit stop rule put a damper on Verstappen’s race. As a result, he finished 4th after pitting in the last laps of the race.
Races to forget
The last round of the triple header had the drivers racing in Spain. However, the Dutchman did not manage to continue the streak of solid races. A headloss incident with George Russell on track had him demoted to P10, marking Verstappen’s lowest result of the 2025 F1 season.
Nonetheless, the Canadian GP gave Verstappen a good opportunity to gather points, and he took it. When his RB21 backed him up even slightly more than usual, Max Verstappen harnessed the skills he learned in all his years in F1. The outcome of the race placed him second. Additionally, McLaren’s incident raised hopes all around for a recovery from Red Bull. And the following home race DNF in Austria brought that optimism right back down. An unavoidable incident with Kimi Antonelli took Verstappen out of the race after a couple of laps.
The British GP and predictions
The twelfth round of the 2025 season took place at the iconic F1 British GP, where Verstappen started the race in pole. Yet, nothing could change the RB21’s lack of grip, which had the Dutchman spinning out and losing positions after a safety car restart. The wet race connoisseur did not get a chance to put those abilities to good use as his car had problems all through the weekend, despite some upgrades. He finished 5th, utterly disappointed with the outcome of the race.
Following the break between this round and the next, Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, was dismissed from his position. With the rumours of Verstappen looking at switching teams, the decision to fire Horner could be the team’s last attempt at trying to fix this performance issue that has followed them since the end of 2024. While the Dutchman decided to avoid addressing the speculations, nothing is certain at the time of this article. Nevertheless, he remains incredibly talented.
As all his teammates struggled to tame the RB21, Verstappen prevailed, and his 2025 F1 results show exactly that. Despite frustrations and poor performance with the car, the Red Bull driver managed to show everyone why he is the current world champion.
