The 2025 season has been poor for Red Bull, and the Hungarian GP was yet another disappointing weekend. The Austrian team only managed to rack up two points, as they slipped further behind their rivals in the constructors’ standings.
Red Bull is in decline as their upgrades look to have not improved the RB21. Their competitors are also able to make improvements to their cars, meaning Red Bull is further behind. This race in Budapest is in complete stark contrast to how the team dominated it just two years ago.
Max Verstappen’s stats show a rapid Red Bull decline
At the Hungaroring, Yuki Tsunoda started from the pit lane after exiting qualifying at the first hurdle. From there, he was unable to make much progress as he crossed the line in P17, with just the two Alpines behind the Japanese racer.
Max Verstappen’s weekend was also disappointing, as the four-time world champion could only finish the race in P9. The Dutchman was unable to make any progress from P8 as the two-stop strategy left him having to clear traffic on a track difficult to overtake on.
Red Bull in Hungary through the years
2023: Max Verstappen wins by the largest margin of the season (33s)
Two years later: Max Verstappen finishes 9th behind a Racing Bulls & 1m 12s off the win
Shows how much they’ve been outdone. pic.twitter.com/ke2kcVGieX
— Daniel Valente 🏎️ (@F1GuyDan) August 3, 2025
This result is completely different from just two years ago, as F1 journalist Daniel Valente has pointed out. In 2023, Max Verstappen won the Hungarian GP by 33 seconds, which was the highest winning margin that year, with Sergio Perez joining the Dutchman on the podium. Two years later, Verstappen crossed the line 1m and 12 seconds off the pace, and was the first car not to be lapped by Lando Norris.
The dropoff from the most dominant team to one scraping for points in just two years has shocked the F1 world. Laurent Mekies has a big job to make Red Bull competitive again and try to tempt Verstappen to stay with the team post-2026.
Helmut Marko blames tyres for Red Bull issues at the Hungarian GP
Red Bull recorded their second-worst result of the season in Hungary, only followed by the Austrian GP, where they failed to score points. However, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes he has pinpointed the reason. The Austrian believes there was an issue with the tyres.
Red Bulls topadviseur Helmut Marko stelt dat team oorzaak heeft gevonden, waardoor banden niet in juiste ‘window’ kwamen dit weekend in Hongarije.
“Het zal zoals hier niet meer gebeuren in andere races, verwacht ik. Achteraf was een 1-stopper beter geweest.” #F1
— Erik van Haren (@ErikvHaren) August 3, 2025
F1 journalist Erik Van Haren says Marko claims that Red Bull was slow as the team couldn’t get the tyres in the “right working window”. Marko concluded that “it won’t happen like this again in other races, I expect. In hindsight, a one-stop strategy would have been better.”
This could explain the RB21’s lack of pace and grip. In Belgium, the car performed with Verstappen crossing the line in P5, while Tsunoda made it into Q3 for the first time. There was a large disparity between the two weekends. Whether it is the track layout or a tyre issue, the RB21 didn’t work in Hungary. If the issue isn’t those causes, Red Bull is in for a long remainder of the season, with no new upgrades in the pipeline.
