Red Bull End of Year Report: A late-season surge hindered by year-long instability
- Kavi Khandelwal
- 27 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Written by Kavi Khandelwal, Edited by Meghana Sree
With another year of Formula One action in the books, our writers review each F1 team’s 2025 campaign and assess their performance across the season. Red Bull Racing had a rollercoaster ride this year from fighting for wins to an intense title battle that slipped away in the dying moments of the championship. Here's their end of year report.
The team finished third in the Constructors’ Championship, accumulating 451 points throughout the season. They finished behind Mercedes, who had 469 points, and ahead of Ferrari with 398 points.
While their season was anchored by the unmatched talent of Max Verstappen who secured eight victories — the most of any driver in 2025 — the team structure slowly fell apart as the old guard of Adrian Newey, Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko left the team, and Laurent Mekies became the new team principal following Horner’s exit.
Verstappen finished runner-up in the Drivers’ Championship, falling short of Lando Norris by merely two points. This narrow defeat underlined the costly nature of an unstable team management and mid-season collisions.
The team relied heavily on Verstappen’s brilliance, as the second seat struggled significantly to contribute consistent points, forcing Red Bull to essentially fight the season with a one-man attack against a unified McLaren front.
Drivers’ Head-to-Head Performance
The internal dynamic at Red Bull Racing was characterized by stark dominance from Max Verstappen over his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.
Tsunoda had replaced Liam Lawson after just two races, but struggled immensely to adapt to the complexity and demands of the Red Bull chassis.
Verstappen delivered a perfect qualifying record against Tsunoda across the season. He out-qualified his teammate 22-0 across the season’s non-sprint sessions.
This gap was also reflected in the points tally: the Dutch driver scored a commanding 93% of Red Bull’s total constructors’ points, illustrating the team’s total reliance on him. Against Verstappen's relentless performance, Tsunoda could gather only 30 points for the team across 22 Grands Prix.
This huge difference in performance was a key factor in the team's failure to secure the Constructors' Championship and resulted in Tsunoda being axed at the end of the year.
Best Moments
The peaks of the 2025 season were powered, exclusively, by the extraordinary competitive spirit and speed of Verstappen. His ability to launch a mind-blowing late-season charge up the rankings, despite being well behind the top two in the Drivers' Championship, easily serves as his most impressive feat.
In that period of resurgence, Verstappen won five out of eight races between the 2025 Italian Grand Prix and the Qatar Grand Prix, rapidly closing a gap that had stood at over 100 points during the summer break. This late-season form allowed him to take the championship fight down to the final race in Abu Dhabi.
The absolute peak of the team's performance came in that Abu Dhabi season finale. Verstappen secured pole position and then claimed a decisive, dominant victory. Although the victory was not enough to overturn the two-point deficit to Norris, it validated the chassis’ ultimate pace and Verstappen’s capacity for flawless execution under immense pressure.
Meanwhile, Tsunoda’s best finish during his time with Red Bull in 2025 was a respectable P6 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where he picked up eight vital points for the team. Further points came with seventh in the United States Grand Prix.
The Japanese driver managed a points finish in seven Grands Prix through the season, proving that when the car was to his liking, he had the potential to serve up useful support points for the Constructors' campaign.
Worst Moments
The first half of the season was disappointing for the team. With McLaren’s dominance, and Red Bull unable to catch up, the team were unsure if another title victory was on the cards for them by the time the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix rolled around.
A collision with Mercedes rookie, Kimi Antonelli at the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix on the first few laps led to a DNF for the driver. This points loss was then compounded by a controversial collision with Mercedes driver, George Russell, at the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix.
The collision led to a 10-second time penalty for Verstappen, who ultimately finished 10th in the race. That incident is widely cited as the most significant flashpoint that cost him crucial points in the championship fight.
As for his teammate, Tsunoda struggled to adapt to the complexity of the Red Bull car. His difficulties peaked during the final third of the season as his failure to consistently back up Verstappen’s results were put under a spotlight.
The Singapore Grand Prix saw critics calling the race “disastrous” for the Japanese driver, leading to public statements post-race that Tsunoda was “completely lost”. His struggles further culminated at the São Paulo Grand Prix, which he called “one of the worst weekends”. The race involved two 10-second time penalties for Tsunoda, one for causing a collision and the other for not serving the first penalty correctly.
This extreme lack of consistent points contribution from the second seat, combined with Verstappen’s early setbacks, proved insurmountable against a highly consistent McLaren.
Their biggest defining disappointment of the season, however, is their failure to retain a fifth title for Verstappen by a razor-thin margin.
Looking Ahead
Red Bull begins its 2026 season with structural cornerstones changing, namely the absence of longtime Chief Technical Officer Newey, and with the launch of their own engine program supported by Ford.
The team has also confirmed their new driver pairing following Tsunoda’s exit, promoting the impressive rookie Isack Hadjar from Racing Bulls to partner Verstappen for the new regulatory cycle.
However, the technical challenge is immense: Red Bull is transforming into a full works team, launching Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) in partnership with Ford to produce their own Power Unit.
With a mammoth era of change ahead of them, Red Bull Team Principal Mekies has managed expectations, stating that the team is "not delusional" and does not expect to be winning in 2026 as they tackle the challenge of being a new original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
This massive task is further complicated by the high-profile departure of legendary designer Newey, who left to join Aston Martin, taking his vision and 2026 masterplan to a competitor.
