Red Bull’s Helmut Marko felt that McLaren would have an advantage in Miami owing to the conditions in the race weekend. The 2025 F1 season has been intriguing, even though it has been claimed since pre-season that the Woking-based squad has the edge over the rest of the field, the gap is not that dominant.
While there had been races where the gap had accentuated, what became clear was that the car could be beaten in certain conditions. In Japan, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen secured pole position and the win. He once again secured pole position in Jeddah and could have potentially won the race if not for the penalty.
McLaren tends to excel in races where temperatures are high. In those conditions, the team just pulls out a gap. Heading to the F1 Miami GP, the conditions are going to be humid, and that could potentially play into the hands of the team.
Talking about Red Bull and its prospects in Miami, Helmut Marko wrote in his column for Speedweek that the conditions potentially mean a bigger advantage for the Woking-based squad. He said:
“What do the findings from the first five races mean for the upcoming race in Miami? Once again, we’re talking about a completely different track, but above all, we’re expecting higher temperatures. On paper, that’s not an advantage for us. In Jeddah, we were eight tenths behind McLaren in the third practice session, in significantly warmer conditions than later in qualifying.”
He added:
“We and the other opponents expected McLaren to drive away from everyone. But that didn’t happen. In Miami, we still expect the conditions to be more in McLaren’s favor.”
Red Bull working on broadening the working range of the car
Red Bull, on its part, has its biggest Achilles heel in the inability to find the sweet spot in the setup. The car could be very competitive, and Max Verstappen could take it to places if they find that. Unfortunately, when that’s not the case, the team struggles big time to get a respectable result.
To improve this, the team has been working on broadening the working range because once that happens, Red Bull can hit the sweet spot more often and be more competitive. Talking about the same, Marko said:
“Our task at the moment is to develop a broader working window for our race car; and also to reduce certain weaknesses of the car before the races in Europe and thus improve the basic speed of the car.”
The race in Miami is probably the biggest litmus test for Red Bull because if the car doesn’t work here, it would not bode well for a lot of the tracks this season. On the contrary, if it does, we’re looking at a major jump in expectations of what the team can achieve this season.
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Edited by Hitesh Nigam
