Martin Brundle’s worrying Red Bull observation - but Max Verstappen still “the favourite”

Martin Brundle has declared Max Verstappen “the favourite” heading into the 2025 F1 season despite a worrying observation about how Red Bull performed during pre-season testing.

It wasn’t an entirely straightforward three days of testing for Red Bull at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Verstappen was in the RB21 for the whole final day - but didn’t complete a full race run.

Red Bull tested a number of setups and front wing combinations to try and improve the car's balance.

The car looked far from hooked up at times, with Verstappen spinning at Turn 1.

The Dutchman was shaking his head in frustration before slamming the throttle down.

Looking ahead to the first race in Australia next week, Brundle acknowledged that the new Red Bull wasn’t “glued to the race track”.

“It looked okay in Bahrain at the test,” Brundle said to Sky Sports News. “They were saying that they’ve fixed a lot of last year’s problems, but we also saw Max out on track, shaking his head once and spinning up the wheels because he was angry the car went around on him.

“I didn’t sense it  was exactly glued to the race track but they were pretty tricky conditions in that pre-season test. For me, Max starts the season as the favourite because he will be clear number one in that team and Red Bull should have fixed it.

“He’s so fast, he’s so good. He knows how to win multiple championships - so does Lewis.

“His main rivals so far don’t know how to win any F1 world championships - Charles, George, Lando, Oscar Piastri too. I think Max should start the season [as the favourite].

“Whoever wins this year’s world championship will win a binding world championship.”

Red Bull expected to be behind McLaren in Australia

The general consensus is that Red Bull will start the year behind McLaren.

McLaren enjoyed a strong pre-season despite both drivers struggling with rear instability when behind the wheel of the MCL39.

Red Bull remain confident that they’ve ironed out some of the handling issues that plagued Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the latter half of last year.

Red Bull technical chief Pierre Wache has conceded that McLaren and probably Ferrari are ahead heading into Melbourne next weekend.

“I think it will be tight,” Wache said to The Race. “At the moment it doesn’t look like we are quick enough, but after we will see. It looks like McLaren and Ferrari are quicker.”