Max Verstappen and Red Bull F1 suffer embarrassing Honda nightmare

Honda, Verstappen, socials — Photo: © IMAGO

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Max Verstappen and Red Bull suffer embarrassing Honda nightmare

Red Bull and Honda are facing a familiar F1 problem

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Monday 18 August 2025 12:57 Updated: 18:03

It's one of the most curious questions in F1 this season. Exactly how bad is this year's Red Bull?

Max Verstappen has won races with it. But Verstappen is also the best driver in the world so there is a good chance that what he is achieving in the RB21 is nothing short of sensational.

So the best gauge to view this is by looking at his team-mates. First Liam Lawson, who was ditched after two races and now Yuki Tsunoda. Both have driven the RB21 and also for the sister team Racing Bulls this year. Curiously, at best, both look no better off driving the RB21.

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Tsunoda's had the car for 12 grands prix now and has only scored four points in those (ignoring sprints which are the Scrappy Doo of F1) - none of them in the last seven races where he can't even finish above 12th. During this time Lawson, who was all at sea in his two RB21 races, has picked up 20 points in the Racing Bulls' VCARB 02.

Meanwhile rookie Isack Hadjar has picked up a neat 21 grand prix points this term. There is an argument therefore that incredibly the Racing Bulls car may be better than the Red Bull car. No wonder then recently axed Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been kicked to the kerb. Do you agree? Make sure you have your say in our GPFans poll at the bottom of this article.

This though is not a new story to F1, in fact this is Red Bull's outgoing power unit supplier Honda's second rodeo after the disaster of 2007.

How bad were Honda F1 in 2007?

Honda ended 2006 as arguably one of the best teams in F1. No driver picked up more points in the last six races than lead driver Jenson Button and there were suggestions that they could be title challengers for the 2007 championship.

However, the RA106 from 2006 was designed by Geoff Willis who would leave the team during the season under a cloud following the arrival of in-house bike expert Shuhei Nakamoto. It was Nakamoto's job to oversee the aerodynamics of the RA107 for 2007.

Part of the grid at the time was another Honda team in Super Aguri who were running cars one year older than the factory outfit.

Two things stuck out about the RA107 on launch ahead of the 2007 season, firstly its livery left people stunned after ditching a simple and familiar white and black scheme for a full picture of the earth as part of an environmental awareness advertisement. Secondly was how bad the car was. And it was damn near terrible.

Unfortunately for Honda, while they were running the RA107, Super Aguri had the RA106 from 2006. When Super Aguri started performing even better than the Honda the embarrassment was clear as day. Honda had designed and built a car that was slower than what they already had.

Jenson Button drives the 2005 BAR car, which became Honda in 2006

Honda stunned the F1 world with their earth livery in 2007

Honda, despite boasting the driving talents of future world champion Button and multiple race winner Rubens Barrichello could barely crack the points of a top-eight finish. In the latter's case he didn't score a single point in 2007.

For most of the year, Super Aguri led Honda in the Constructors' championship - with only Spyker slower than both teams.

Honda were set for a major embarrassment until Button's class partially masked the ultimate humiliation by scoring a fifth place in China in the penultimate race to edge Honda in front of Super Aguri. At the end of the season, Honda only scored six points, just two more than Super Aguri.

Come 2008, Super Aguri then had to run a car based on the RA107 with predictable results. But not only did the team get nowhere near to scoring any points they also folded after just four races of the season.

Why did Honda leave F1?

Honda didn't fare much better with the RA108. Not counting Super Aguri they were still the second slowest team in front of the rebadged Spykers (now Force India), but despite scoring 14 points, six of those were by Barrichello who bagged a podium in the British Grand Prix downpour that was famously won by Lewis Hamilton who finished a minute in front of anyone else.

Such was the turmoil at this time around Honda's F1 project that Nakamoto left the team to return to two-wheeled motorsport at the end of the season. Four days later Honda pulled out of F1 and that's where the Brawn story begins.

So while we now know that the B-team can be faster than the A-team, is that the case with the Red Bull and the Racing Bulls this year? The best way we can find out is by sticking Verstappen in a VCARB 02. Unfortunately the test everyone wants to see will never happen and we perhaps all know why...

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

Red Bull Max Verstappen Christian Horner Yuki Tsunoda Liam Lawson Isack Hadjar