Red Bull take double points but no prizes at Bahrain Grand Prix

Red Bull saw both drivers take points at the Bahrain Grand Prix but had a race where they failed to challenge for podiums or the win.

Max Verstappen took 6th place, thanks in part to a last lap overtake on one time teammate Pierre Gasly, while teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished 9th, taking his first points since being promoted into the Red Bull senior team.

This was the first race of 2025 where both Red Bull drivers finished in a points position, but it provided little other consolation to Red Bull in a race where they struggle to keep pace with the McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes cars ahead.

With four races of the F1 season done, Red Bull see Verstappen sitting third in the Driver’s Championship. The Dutchman has 69 points after four races, 5 points behind second place Oscar Piastri and 8 behind early championship leader Lando Norris.

Tsunoda’s first points as a Red Bull driver means the Japanese driver now has 5 overall, with his two added to three points scored at Racing Bulls before his promotion last month. He sits 14th in the championship.

In the Constructor’s Championship, the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team sit third with 71 points. They are 14 points above fourth place Ferrari, 22 behind second place Mercedes and 80 off early leaders McLaren.

Although Verstappen had won the previous round in Japan, Red Bull arrived expecting the Bahrain Grand Prix to be difficult and they started with an off-the-pace run in qualifying, with Verstappen starting 7th and Tsunoda 10th.

Verstappen was passed at the start by the fast-starting Williams of Carlos Sainz, but the Dutchman was able to pass his one-time Toro Rosso teammate a few laps into the race.

An early problem would beset the Red Bull operation, however, with a fault with the automated pit lane traffic light delaying both Verstappen and Tsunoda when they made early pit-stops.

The slow stop saw Verstappen get undercut by Esteban Ocon, while Tsunoda would overtaken by Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari after initially undercutting the 7-time champion.

Verstappen struggled on hard tyres after the stop, and after getting overtaken by Kimi Antonelli and then Hamilton, he was brought in for a second time, albeit not helped by a slow removal of the front right tyre that lead to another slow pit-stop.

Tsunoda, meanwhile, would soon be involved in pivotal action. A fight between him and Sainz in the opening sequence of corners at the start of lap 31 lead to debris being scattered across the track, largely from the side of Sainz’s Williams and culminated in the safety car being deployed.

Verstappen was 7th at the restart, and he was eventually able to clear Gasly’s Alpine with a move on the final lap to take sixth on the track. Meanwhile, Tsunoda would make a move on Jack Doohan, whose Alpine struggled with worn-out tyres, but the Japanese driver would have to settle for 9th after being unable to make a move on Ocon ahead.

The Red Bull team will be hoping for better next time around when they make a trip to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, with round five of the season being the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.