Max Verstappen claims it’s “impossible” to quantify whether McLaren’s 2025 advantage outweighs the one Red Bull had with its 2023 Formula 1 machine.
Mercedes’ George Russell has been repeatedly despondent about the field’s deficit to McLaren, despite the 2025 season being one race young.
In Melbourne, he argued that McLaren could already switch 100% development focus onto next year given the pace of the MCL39 and on Thursday in Shanghai, he made an even bolder claim.
“The gap they have this year on everybody is bigger than Red Bull has ever had,” he said (via The Race),” adding the MCL39’s advantage is “definitely bigger” than the RB19 that won all but one race in 2023.
Verstappen, meanwhile, said “it’s impossible” to say whether the MCL39 is stronger than the all-conquering Red Bull.
“Unless you have driven that car yourself,” he added.
“They’re super strong,” Verstappen said of McLaren.
“I have a lot of respect for what they have done already last year and now they’re very fast. Very all-round, good everywhere.
“That is just a fact now, how big the gap is or whatever is difficult to say.”
Red Bull lacking all-around performance to McLaren – Verstappen
All-around performance is something that Verstappen believes Red Bull’s RB21 is lacking.
Speaking to F1 media the Dutchman said “I just want to focus on our own car. We just try to work from there, because that’s the only thing that we can control anyway.
“That’s what I prefer to focus on and hopefully, step by step, we can find some more performance.
“I think in general, what we have seen so far, high-speed has not really been weak, so it is quite good.
“It is more the rest of it, where we are not all-round enough.
“That is what we have to work on. Here, there are not that many high-speed corners, but there are a lot of unknowns with the tarmac – it’s new. So it’s very hard to say where we will be.”
His assessment of the weekend ahead was pragmatic, saying “I for sure know that we will not be the quickest because I think that is McLaren with how strong they are currently.
“But that’s fine. We just have to focus on ourselves and try to do the best we can.”
When it comes to how the pecking order behind McLaren, Verstappen added “Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari were all quite close [in Australia].
“And [that] probably will differ a bit track to track.”
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