This is why Racing Bulls is the big surprise at the beginning of F1 2025

One more year, the fight in the middle zone of the squad is being exciting, especially the fight for fifth place in the Construction Championship, which guarantees important metallic awards.

Currently, in fifth position is Williams, in a growth trajectory rooted in the work carried out between racks during the last two years. However, the middle zone challenge offers other perspectives, which could be summarized in a single question: What was the “Surprise” team at the beginning of the 2025 season?

Without a doubt, Williams could be one of the strongest candidates, but there is another team that, although it has not shone in the classification due to the opportunities they have wasted, has actually demonstrated excellent performance, even above their own expectations: the Racing Bulls.

At this start of the year, Racing Bulls and Williams have disputed the leadership of the middle zone in most races. However, looking at the classification, the comparison seems obvious: 25 points for the British team, only eight for Faenza. But the numbers do not say everything. To really understand why Racing Bulls is surprise, we have to go back a few months ago.

Racing Bulls and Williams followed an opposite path

After Alpine, Williams is the team that has made the most obvious progress In these first five races compared to last year. In 2024, winter delays paid expensively, they had an overweight car and that made them seem slower than they were.

However, the winter break allowed them to recover and start benefiting from the work done in the previous months, with a solid base on which to progress. It is no accident that the team director, James VowlesHe often said that they should have achieved more in 2024, but accidents and errors weighed more than the true potential of the FW46.

The Williams road was diametrically opposed to Racing Bull, which began 2024 with one of the most competitive cars in the middle zone. The Faenza team knew how to capitalize on the good potential of the car from the beginning, adding important points and getting outstanding results, for example Daniel Ricciardo’s fourth position in the Miami Sprint race.

However, the package taken to Barcelona did not give the expected results, to the point that the Faenza team immediately took a step back, entering a descending spiral that lasted months, in search of more aerodynamic load. Although they managed to find the way back at the end of last year, their rivals had already advanced in the development of their respective cars.

In it VCARB02therefore, the objective was not only to increase the aerodynamic load, but also close the accumulated performance gap in the second half of the last campaign. However, Bahrain’s winter tests in 2025 had raised more than one doubt about the real potential of the car. Not surprisingly, on the eve of the Australian GP, ​​the team had been transparent, admitting that it was not yet at the desired level.

The VCARB02 surprised, even to the team itself

These expectations faded completely a few hours later, when the VCARB02 clearly demonstrated to be the most competitive car in the middle zone, despite getting out of there with a zero. With a more effective strategy, Yuki Tsunoda could have been even room, or at least end in top 5.

“In Melbourne the car was well balanced. We had no problem. The pilots were comfortable and could push. And, as is usually the case when you are in this situation, time per return also arrived,” explained the team director, Laurent Mekieson the eve of the second career of the course, specifically Shanghai, where the team hoped that some more critical problems in rapid curves, the weak point of 2024.

Once again, the track told a different story: in the two classification sessions of the China GP, the VCARB02 proved to be the strongest car in the middle zone. However, as happened in Melbourne, the team was unable to convert that potential into points, due to another strategic error that compromised its top 10.

Racing Bulls also showed positive signs in Suzuka and Yeda: in Japan the best result of the season came, with a great eighth place signed by Isack Hadjar. In Saudi Arabia, Hadjar himself could not attack due to Williams’ bold strategy, to defend himself against his VCARB02.

The only disappointing race was that of Bahrain, the same track that had already left some perplexity in training. However, from this first part of the season two clear indications have emerged: The VCARB02 has taken a step forward in fast curves, So the load and stability have improvedits main critical points in 2024.

In addition, the car benefits from a Higher operational windowwhich facilitates pilots and engineers to find an effective tuning, which was precisely one of the objectives that had been set during the winter.

This translates into a more linear work throughout the weekend, in clear contrast to the difficulties that Red Bull usually finds. Precisely in that aspect, the Racing Bull seem to have learned from the mistakes of last season, abandoning the search for extreme solutions in favor of A more balanced and adaptable platform.

The beginning of the season has revealed the qualities of the VCARB02, although its potential has not yet translated into points in the Construction Championship, especially on some weekends in which there were real possibilities of obtaining a good spot of points.

The classification, in fact, is misleading and does not reflect the real value of the car, whose performance tells a very different story, made of clear technical progress and a reenchentrated solidity that has allowed the team to play a regular role in the middle zone of the grill, waiting for the updates planned for European careers.

Meanwhile, Tsunoda’s goodbye, which has joined Red Bull, leaves an important vacuum, having moved away from the team to a fast pilot with four experiences of experience behind him, which could also have been an important element to guide the team, also in development. But the battle in the middle zone of the squad is far from having finished, and the Racing Bull seem determined to be confirmed as one of the most interesting surprises of 2025.