Can Red Bull carry its surprise pace into Baku?

When Max Verstappen said back in Hungary that he did not expect Red Bull to win another grand prix for the remainder of the 2025 season, reality turned out differently. The Dutchman won in Monza, and did so in dominant fashion. Verstappen built a lead of almost 20 seconds, although Lando Norris jokingly said during the post-race press conference: “It was 19, no? I just don’t want any misinformation!”

On a more serious note, Verstappen and Red Bull’s superior pace at Monza came as a surprise to many in the paddock, including McLaren. It raises the question: how much of it was Monza-specific, and how much of that performance gives Verstappen hope for the races to come?

“You do a lot of things only for Monza. You do wings only for Monza, you do set-up only for Monza, so last year was a very difficult point and the guys did an amazing job analysing last year and coming here with very specific solutions,” replied Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies. “So to answer your question, tonight we probably think that a lot of it is Monza-specific, but we’ll find out in Baku how much of the learnings with the new components we had [floor] and with the way we ran the car can be transferred to other tracks.”

Mekies immediately touched on two important points. Regarding the car itself, part of the standout performance was indeed track-specific. Not only did Red Bull have a much-improved low-downforce package – unlike last year – but the RB21 generally performs better on tracks like Monza. It’s a view Verstappen shares: “I think it’s still a bit track dependent. In Monza you drive low downforce. It seems like our car is a bit more competitive when it’s low-downforce to medium-downforce. It’s not that suddenly we are back, and it’s not like we can fight every single weekend now.”

That said, it should be noted that Baku, with its long straights, might suit Red Bull fairly well. The street circuit in Azerbaijan is a bit of a mixed bag for the team. The long full-throttle sections should play to the RB21’s strengths, but Verstappen has repeatedly stated that street circuits and bumps remain two major weaknesses. Baku has both positives and negatives for Red Bull – though overall, it should still be a reasonable fit. So it is no coincidence that Helmut Marko, even before the Italian GP, named Baku as a potential chance to win. The real test will follow afterwards in Singapore, a track that theoretically suits the RB21 much less.

Can Red Bull apply the Monza lessons in Baku?

The other aspect Mekies referred to was how Red Bull “ran the car” in Monza. It links back to what the team has described as a “new philosophy” during the Italian GP weekend, one that Red Bull hopes to carry forward into Baku and beyond.

“The positive is that we seem to understand a bit more what we need to do with the car to be more competitive. So I hope that carries on into the upcoming rounds as well, although some tracks will be a bit better than others,” Verstappen confirmed.

That understanding relates to what Marko explained in Monza: at times relying less on the simulator, and instead giving greater weight to driver feedback. “Our approach is now: regardless of what the simulator tells us, we mix that with Max’s experience and the experience of our engineers,” said the 82-year-old Austrian. “The whole technical team is now much more open and discusses things collectively. They no longer blindly follow what the simulator says.”

Pierre Wache still plays an important role in the technical team that Marko mentioned, being the team’s technical director. The Frenchman also acknowledges that Red Bull’s approach to car set-up has changed slightly after the summer break.

“It has given us a different direction of setting up the car. We already found that direction in Zandvoort, but that was still a very different level of downforce, a level that is not so good for us. In Monza, we have optimised it further, and I think we will see if it works on other tracks as well.” Asked whether that means relying less on the simulation tools going forward, Wache replied: “Well, we still use all the tools at our disposal, but with the limitations in mind.”

If Red Bull can find the operating window of the RB21 at other venues as well, the team has good hope to be more competitive – even though Wache doesn’t expect a repeat of Monza: “Clearly, they [McLaren] are very quick. And they are always there. But compared to last year it was at least important for us to bounce back. Last year we struggled massively in Monza.”

The struggles in Baku were less severe than in Monza. Sergio Perez was in podium contention until his late contact with Carlos Sainz, during a race that marked the second win of Oscar Piastri’s Formula 1 career and fully reignited the flexi-wings debate in the paddock.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

With last year’s performance in mind, plus the slightly adjusted approach, Marko is cautiously positive ahead of next weekend: “For Baku and those fast circuits, I’m very optimistic. Singapore is the only race we haven’t won so far, and normally it’s a bit more difficult for us on slow circuits. But I believe that everything is possible now in this period of time.”

Above all, Red Bull hopes that the lessons from Zandvoort and Monza will help to find the RB21’s ideal set-up window more often – no matter how small that may be. If the team can hit the sweet spot of the car, the RB21 might not always be as poor as has long been feared, also internally.

Whether that translates into more success on track, still depends on the type of track and on McLaren, but it could at least allow Red Bull to be a factor occasionally. Not necessarily in Monza-style dominance, but on the right track, another standout result is far from impossible – despite Verstappen’s pessimistic prediction heading into the summer break.