Red Bull has Max Verstappen as the joker who could overcome car's shortcomings, claims paddock veteran

Red Bull having Max Verstappen as the joker who could make the difference if needed to overcome the car's shortcomings is the view of Helmut Marko as the Austrian team gets ready for the 2025 F1 season. The pre-season test in Bahrain was not the most positive for the Milton Keynes outfit.

The team brought a car that was more or less driver-friendly compared to what it had in 2024. This was also evident as Red Bull appeared to be a more pliant machine in Liam Lawson's hands on the first day of testing. However, as the days progressed and teams started pushing their cars, it became clear that McLaren was arguably the class of the field while other teams were trying to close the gap to it.

While Red Bull had more or less a decent test in ticking off all the checkboxes, the team was the first to acknowledge that the car was not the fastest. Verstappen also said it won't be the quickest when it reaches Australia for the first race. Talking to Sport.de, Marko acknowledged that the team was at a deficit but said Verstappen is the joker who could overcome the shortcomings:

"The car is more predictable. The car reacts to technical things the way it should. It's not the arbitrary behavior that we had last year. That means there is still room for development and improvement with the existing material.

So if the car is not optimal, then we have the joker Max, who then has to bring his driving brilliance into play. With this car, McLaren is the favorite everywhere. Even at the start of the season in Melbourne."

Marko also felt Verstappen could benefit from this season's Lando Norris-Oscar Piastri rivalry.

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Max Verstappen could potentially benefit from McLaren's intra-team rivalry

While Red Bull has put all its eggs in the Max Verstappen basket, McLaren tends to give both drivers the same opportunities, potentially putting it at a disadvantage as both could take points off each other. Talking about the potential of a conflict and Verstappen benefitting from it, Helmut Marko said:

"If you take the test in Bahrain, then it was Lando Norris who coped much better than Oscar Piastri. But I think that was just a phenomenon in Bahrain. I rate Piastri as equally strong and I hope that this will also take away the two points and we will benefit from it. Max is clearly number one for us, and I don't think Piastri will voluntarily declare himself number two.

And we saw that last season: on certain tracks he was equal to, if not faster than, Lando. But the advantage is that McLaren currently has a car again that - if you take Bahrain as an example - copes very well with every type of tire and every temperature."

For the 2025 F1 season, Verstappen aims to win a fifth consecutive title that would put him level with Michael Schumacher as the driver with the longest streak of consecutive titles.