It was a relatively quiet weekend for Red Bull in Monaco, as Max Verstappen was forced to settle for 4th place.
After a convincing victory in Imola, Verstappen’s RB21 had no answer for McLaren or Ferrari at the principality.
Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, was largely helpless in the Grand Prix – with a poor qualifying ruining his chances of scoring points.
Still, in terms of the drivers’ Championship, Verstappen kept himself within touching distance of the McLaren duo.
According to team principal Christian Horner, this was Red Bull’s objective heading into the Spanish GP – when the long-awaited new technical directive will come into play.
Red Bull unable to match McLaren in Monaco
Traditionally, the hyper-specific demands of the Monaco circuit has provided difficulties for dominant teams in Formula 1.
Mercedes, for example, were often vulnerable to Red Bull at Ferrari in Monte Carlo – even during the peak of their powers.
In a similar way, Red Bull were vulnerable to Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin in 2023 – whilst Charles Leclerc emerged victorious in 2024.
With this track record, the Milton Keynes squad were not necessarily optimistic heading into this weekend.
Verstappen established his expectations immediately after Friday Practice, downplaying his chances of fighting for victory.
Last weekend confirmed a wider trend of Red Bull struggling at street circuits, which has become something of an Achilles heel.
Even with their recent updates, the RB21 lacks the consistency to challenge McLaren at every circuit.
Moreover, both Mercedes and Ferrari are competitive enough to finish ahead of Red Bull on their stronger tracks.
Luckily for the Austrian team, they expect the balance of power to tip in their favour this weekend.
Red Bull anticipate turning point in Spain
The first major story of the 2025 season emerged well before the lights went out in Australia for round one.
A series of announcements from the FIA, including news of a new technical directive to be implemented in Spain, dominated pre-season discourse.
The impact of these changes, designed to clamp down on teams finding creative ways to circumvent ‘flexi-wing’ restrictions has been extensively debated.
However, there has been no debate from the Red Bull camp about how this directive could shape the pecking order.
In short, the Milton Keynes outfit believe that McLaren could lost performance when this new rule is implemented.
Following the Monaco GP, Christian Horner’s comments confirmed this overall sentiment:
“We rolled the dice today. It didn’t work and our best chance was a safety car or a red flag or VSC as you’re never going to overtake on track here.
“We went long with Max and he led a lot of the laps today but ultimately had to take that final stop.
“For Yuki we did the inverse, and pitted him on lap one.
“Initially it looked like he would get significant benefit from it but then everyone started to drive extremely slowly, as they started playing around with their tactics…
“So, damage limitation today. We have only given away three points to Oscar, the Championship leader.
“And we go into Barcelona within a race win and that was the target to hit this regulation change.”
Main photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images (via Red Bull content pool)
