Max Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen was spotted in a furious confrontation with Helmut Marko following the Bahrain Grand Prix. It was not a good race for Red Bull with Verstappen uncompetitive in sixth place and more than 30 seconds behind winner Oscar Piastri.
One small silver lining was Yuki Tsunoda finishing ninth as the second Red Bull car scored points for the first time in 2025. But that certainly did not improve moods in Verstappen’s side of the garage as Ted Kravitz spotted uncomfortable scenes after the chequered flag had flown.
The Sky Sports pit lane reporter recalled what he had witnessed as he spoke live on his Ted’s Notebook show. “At the end of the race, I was waiting around here for some team principals and Raymond Vermeulen, Max’s manager, came into the Red Bull garage and gave Helmut Marko what can only be described as a piece of his mind,” he said.
“He was remonstrating with Helmut Marko who was just standing there, taking it, and then Raymond stormed off to the back of the garage sort of taking his pass off as he went. Clearly, they are not happy.”
Verstappen was a long way off the pace throughout the whole weekend. In qualifying he suffered brakes problems which limited him to just seventh on the grid and he could only manage to make up one place by the end of an incident-filled race.
The pace of their cars was so bad that Red Bull chiefs held crisis talks following the race to discuss how badly things had gone wrong. Marko was in attendance, along with team principal Christian Horner, technical director Pierre Wache and chief engineer Paul Monaghan.
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Speaking after that meeting, Marko told reporters: “It’s a very difficult day for Red Bull, that’s obvious to all of us. We have to get, as soon as possible, performance in the car again and also standards like a pitstop have to work. The car is not the fastest and then the pitstops are not working. That is not acceptable.”
He later added: “[It is] very alarming. We know that we are not competitive and there will be parts coming in the coming races and hopefully they bring improvement. We have a lot of problems. The main problem is balance and trip.
“And out of this, I guess the problems with the brakes came up. And then the normal procedure like a pitstop is not working, so one [issue] comes after the other.”
Verstappen was glum as he faced the media after a difficult night in Sakhir and said: “Everything went wrong that could go wrong. The pace was very bad. We have our problems, and even if you win a race that doesn’t go away, so we just keep discussing and keep trying to improve.”
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