Jan Lammers also watched as McLaren clinched the win at the first two Grand Prix weekends of the season. Red Bull Racing - especially in China - followed behind. Will Max Verstappen's team be able to catch up to the papaya outift? For now, Lammers sees a big advantage for McLaren over Verstappen and the rest of their pursuers.
Will Verstappen manage to become champion in 2025? It is a question Lammers cannot answer. However, he does say in conversation with GPblog: "If Max thinks it's still possible, it's still possible. At the end of the day, you are who you think you are. So if Max sees himself still having a chance..."
For now, though, the title defense looks like a hell of a task. In the first few weeks, Red Bull clearly fell short of the McLaren of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. "Look, the way it is now, at least it won't stay that way," Lammers believes. "So either it's going to get much worse at Red Bull, or it's going to improve. But this is not the picture that is going to stay remain all year."
McLaren's advantage
According to the former driver, Red Bull has hugely lacked compared to McLaren in the first two races of the season. "A huge strength and a huge advantage for McLaren are that they have two cars and two drivers who constantly come all practice with very valuable feedback, with data and their comments. Then they also race, where a lot of relevant data always comes out.
"With Max, of course valuable data has been collected, but with Liam [Lawson] not really. Because the data from his qualifying, of course you can't do much with that.
Lawson failed to get out of Q1 in all three of the qualifying sessions he drove for Red Bull, slotting in P20 for the sprint race and the Sunday race in China.
"Because you can only really diagnose a car if it is driven the way it should be driven. If a driver is still searching in that, you do get data and feedback, but that's not really relevant feedback that you can do something with.
"That makes the gap that was obviously already there grow even bigger after such a race," Lammers said.
This article was written in collaboration with Norberto Mujica.
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels too!
Popular on GPBlog
Red Bull looks for answers according to Marko: ‘Make RB21 easier to drive’
Piastri as Verstappen's successor at Red Bull? The Australian responds!
Verstappen "has become a real man" says manager, but admits the RB21 is at "ceiling of development"
