How much does Red Bull Racing need Max Verstappen? Just consult the Austrian Grand Prix results.
This was a weekend on which nothing much went Verstappen’s way. His final qualifying lap was cancelled by Pierre Gasly’s late spin out of the final corner, and he was wiped out of the race at the third turn by an errant Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Red Bull Racing scored no points.
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Yuki Tsunoda in the sister car finished a penalised 16th as the only driver lapped twice. An unscheduled third stop for damage repairs put him a whopping 30.4 seconds off the back of the pack.
In Verstappen’s hands the RB21 was a front-row contender on Saturday and would have been a podium threat on Sunday.
With Tsunoda behind the wheel it was a backmarker, qualifying 18th and staggering around at the rear of the field.
“The pace itself was pretty poor,” the clearly dejected Japanese driver said after the race. “I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, to be honest.
“I have to look through it harder, but it’s really, really hard to find the reason for what I’m doing so wrong to drive this slowly.
“If I can do something different in the driving style or if I can take something that Max is doing differently compared to me — whatever it is, I’ll try, from left to right, everything, and keep improving.”
Austria was Tsunoda’s fourth non-scoring race in a row, and the Japanese driver has scored just seven points since switching to Red Bull Racing at the third round of the season. Only five other drivers — one of whom has since been dropped — have scored fewer points in that time.
In the meantime Verstappen has scored 119 points.
His lack of contribution means that over the last three races Sauber has outscored Red Bull Racing 20-19 — an opportunistic comparison but a nonetheless telling one.
Tsunoda is ahead of only Oliver Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto and the scoreless Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan in the championship. In a cruel irony, even Liam Lawson, the man he replaced and who took his seat at Racing Bulls, is two points ahead of him on the title table.
The situation is untenable.
But it’s untenable for Red Bull Racing, not for Tsunoda.
We’ve seen this movie too many times to pin the blame on the driver.
As must now be concluded to have been the case with Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Pérez and Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing is not a victim of poor driver selection for having elevated Tsunoda.
Tsunoda is the victim of a team that’s allowed itself to become incapable of fielding more than one driver.
What would happen if that one driver were to leave doesn’t bear thinking about in Milton Keynes.
But fervent speculation over Verstappen’s future is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
‘F***ing idiots’ – Max fumes after crash | 01:09
WOLFF ADMITS TO VERSTAPPEN ‘CONVERSATIONS’
Rare is there smoke without fire in Formula 1, and George Russell proved that adage true in Spielberg at the weekend.
Russell’s own future at Mercedes has been the subject of increasing speculation in recent weeks. The Englishman is out of contract this year, but with so few alternative options for both team and driver, there was no reason to expect anything other than a quick and easy renewal.
But instead the process has been long and drawn out.
Both Russell and team boss Toto Wolff have previously insisted there’s no rush given the lack of external pressure on the decision, but evidently getting tired of waiting, the Briton has spoken out.
“Toto’s made it clear to me that he thinks how I’m performing this year is as good as anybody,” he said. “I think there’s only one driver that you can debate in terms of performance — and these are his words, these are not my words. That’s why I have no concern about the future.
“But there are two seats to every team, and I guess he needs to think who those two drivers are going to be for those two seats. I guess that’s what the delay is.”
Russell’s commentary ensured Wolff’s weekend was dominated by questions about his interest in Verstappen, with the Austrian boss batting them away with variable success.
Asked whether Verstappen had a deadline to decide on joining Mercedes, Wolff didn’t deny having had conversations with the Dutchman, arguing only that they weren’t so advanced yet.
“You make it sound like we have been asking, ‘When do you want to join and what are the terms?’,” he said. “That’s not how it is and not how it works.
“I just want to have the conversations behind closed doors, not town halls.”
Speaking to Sky Sports, he admitted that he was sounding out Verstappen’s availability.
“As a team principal responsible for the best car brand in the world, it is clear you’re exploring what a four-time world champion is going to do in the future,” he told Sky Sports. “And that could be a long time in the future.
“But that has no effect on us putting a signature on George’s contract.”
Wolff’s interest in Verstappen isn’t new. He originally bid to be the team that brought Verstappen to Formula 1 as a rookie but was beaten to his signature by Red Bull, which could offer him a seat on the grid sooner via the then Toro Rosso team.
He renewed open courtship of the Dutchman early last season, when Red Bull Racing become publicly roiled by factional infighting that briefly had Verstappen threatening to walk out of the team.
But this time Wolff appears to have put more meat on the bone. Whereas last year’s ventures felt more speculative and opportunistic, this year the stakes are real. Russell’s delayed contract is evidence.
And Wolff’s commentary about a long-term lunge for Verstappen isn’t the neutraliser it might first appear.
McLaren boys caught in early dogfight | 01:12
COULD VERSTAPPEN REALLY SWITCH TEAMS?
Verstappen is under contract until 2028, but his exit from Red Bull Racing would be facilitated by a performance clause in his paperwork. RBR team principal Christian Horner has admitted to its existence.
It’s been variously speculated that the clause could be triggered if the four-time champion were outside the top three or four on the drivers title table after the Austrian Grand Prix or before the mid-season break.
He’s currently third and only nine points ahead of — ironically enough — Russell in fourth.
But just because the clause is available to him doesn’t mean he must use it.
Arguably this season would be the worst time to exercise such a right.
No-one can be certain about which team will get next year’s rule changes right. Even gut feeling is of limited value given the all-new chassis and engine rules mean there will be no point of reference until pre-season testing in January.
Speculation that Red Bull’s debut in-house power unit is behind the curve is only that — as are rumours that Mercedes is poised to once again dominate the engine game.
Assuming Verstappen’s escape clause in the same terms exists next season, it might make more sense to continue at Red Bull Racing into the new year, appraise the lay of the land and then consider whether a move is necessary.
Hence why Russell’s contract negotiations could be delayed without him necessarily being at risk for 2026.
If it’s clear to Wolff that Mercedes would be Verstappen’s first preference if he were to leave Red Bull Racing next season, Russell could be re-signed with the necessary clauses that would ensure flexibility for the team to make a change in the near future.
Piastri lockup nearly takes out Norris! | 00:30
‘THEY DIDN’T SUDDENLY BECOME IDIOTS’
But the effect for Red Bull Racing is the same. Lose Verstappen today, tomorrow, next season or the season after, it’s still at risk of losing him.
Even if the Dutchman decides to see out his contract, he could still walk away at the end of 2028.
Eventually he will leave Red Bull Racing.
We got a glimpse in Austria of what that means for the team’s competitiveness — a nominally frontrunning team fighting with the backmarkers.
The two problems are linked. If the team can build a more agreeable car, Verstappen would be less likely to leave.
There’s likely no one clear explanation for the alarming decline in form from the team that set new records for domination only two years ago and that powered Verstappen to an easy fourth title last season.
But it was interesting to hear Pérez say the departure of key personnel, in particular legendary designer Adrian Newey, triggered the team’s downfall.
“I think we had a great team,” Pérez told the Desde el Paddock podcast. “In the end, it gradually fell apart … when Adrian left.
“That’s when the problems really started.
“Then Jonathan [Wheatley, former sporting director] left, who was a fundamental part. It all started going downhill.”
Horner denied that his team had been weakened.
“I still believe that we have strength and depth in this team,” he said, per Autosport. “Unfortunately we haven’t seen the performance come from that we would like.
“It’s the same fundamental group of people that 18 months ago had designed a car that won every grand prix but one. They didn’t suddenly become idiots overnight.”
Horner pinned the blame on this being the final year of the regulations, when gains are harder to find and some car concepts have reached natural dead-ends.
He also pointed to his team’s decades-old wind tunnel, which won’t be superseded until next year, when a brand-new unit comes online.
But a change of regulations won’t be a silver bullet.
After all, it’s the same team of people who’ll be designing the new car.
The slate won’t be totally blank.
As an example, consider Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren stint, which straddled 2021 and the major regulation change of 2022.
The Australia struggled to adapt to the peculiar demands of his 2021 McLaren, but there was hope he could start fresh with new rules the following season.
Instead he found many of the same problems still dogged him, and he was sacked before 2023.
Red Bull Racing could find itself developing next year’s car towards the same dead-end if it can’t understand where it’s gone wrong with this year’s machine.
Certainly Newey felt that the technical department wasn’t paying sufficient heed to the problems with the car he saw in 2023 that have since metastasised.
Whether that changes as the team as it turns its full attention to its new car now looms as a significant question.
‘Oh s***, he’s on me!’ | 00:58
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE SEASON?
Austria’s grim returns have certainly ruled Red Bull Racing and Verstappen out of the title equation.
“A performance like this forces us to write off the championship,” Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko admitted.
Perhaps Red Bull Racing will argue that flaming out is a price worth paying for having dominated the sport in recent years, having claimed six titles since Verstappen’s breakthrough in 2021.
There’s merit to that argument. No dynasty lasts forever.
But the cost-benefit ratio would swing wildly if that flame-out resulted in Verstappen leaving.
In those years Red Bull Racing has become increasingly centred on Verstappen — Pérez even said that Horner admitted to him that the team would run just one car if it could.
Now no-one but him can drive the car — and some days even he can barely manage to get it in its infinitesimally narrow sweet spot.
His sudden removal, therefore, wouldn’t simply be a massive vote of no confidence in the team’s medium-term chances of success; it would be a seismic event for Red Bull Racing’s competitive hopes.
Without Verstappen, the current version of Red Bull Racing cannot exist.
The team must therefore go to all lengths to retain him.
Ironically the path to doing that might be to finally start building a car for someone else.