Red Bull F1 team face demotion at 2025 Australian Grand Prix

Red Bull

Red Bull face F1 demotion at Australian Grand Prix

The Australian GP will bring a shock setback for Red Bull F1 team

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Wednesday 5 March 2025 10:00

Red Bull Formula 1 team are facing a demotion at the 2025 season opener which will take place in Melbourne in just over a week.

The Australian Grand Prix is set to kickstart the new campaign, with Red Bull and their star driver, Max Verstappen, eager to jump out of the blocks with a positive result from round one.

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Verstappen secured his fourth consecutive drivers' title following the Las Vegas GP last season, but his victory over closest title rival Lando Norris doesn't quite reflect his struggles throughout 2024.

The Dutchman dominated the drivers' standings in 2022 and 2023, aiding Red Bull in their conquest of the constructors' standings as well.

Red Bull's performance issues saw the 27-year-old go 10 races without a grand prix victory in 2025, however, and thanks to the decline in performance from his former team-mate Sergio Perez, Red Bull could only manage a third-place finish in the team championship last year.

Sergio Perez has waved goodbye to Red Bull F1

Christian Horner's outfit were beaten by McLaren

Championship failure pushes Red Bull further down the garage

After their worst constructors' championship finish since 2019, Red Bull are heading into the season-opening Australian GP facing a significant setback in the paddock.

In F1, the position of each team's garage in the paddock is determined by the order of the constructors' standings from the prior season, and after two years at the top, Horner, Verstappen, and newly-promoted Red Bull driver Liam Lawson will have to familiarise themselves with being lower down the order.

Having claimed their first team trophy since 1998, McLaren will occupy the first garage spot, followed by Ferrari, with Red Bull dropping down to third ahead of the new campaign.

McLaren and Ferrari finished ahead of Red Bull

Whilst Lawson is new among the top teams, an incident from Verstappen during last week's pre-season testing proves the four-time champion may not have quite gotten to grips with his team's demotion.

When entering the pits on the final day of testing in Bahrain, Verstappen appeared to forget that the Red Bull garage would now be third in line, instead seemingly swerving in prematurely between McLaren and Ferrari's new spots.

Noting the mistake, Sky F1's David Croft said during the live broadcast: "Here's Max coming into the pits, pit limiter on, 80 kilometres an hour, where shall I go? Tell you what, I'll go into the first one, that's where I always go isn't it?

"Oh Max that is not where we go now, I'm afraid your team finished third in the constructors' championship and you're a little way down."