Red Bull risks ‘Benetton-like decline’ if Max Verstappen leaves F1 team

Red Bull Racing could face a dramatic decline in Formula 1 akin to Benetton’s post-Michael Schumacher slump if Max Verstappen walks away from the team, warns Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok.

While the Red Bull RB21 has not been a match to the dominant McLaren MCL39 this year, Verstappen has been able to extract maximum performance out of a car that is both unpredictable and difficult to drive to win two races in the opening nine rounds of the season.

Verstappen’s performances have been in stark contrast to his teammates, with Liam Lawson dropped after just two race weekends and his replacement Yuki Tsunoda also hitting a plateau after early showing promise.

Nothing shows Red Bull’s reliance on Verstappen than the constructors' championship, with the Dutchman having scored 137 out of its 144 points so far.

While speculation over Verstappen's future at Red Bull has cooled in recent months, with both parties reiterating their commitment, former F1 driver Chandhok is nevertheless concerned about a fundamental issue plaguing the Milton Keynes-based outfit.

Chandhok drew comparisons with former grand prix team Benetton, which became a shadow of itself when then-two-time world champion Schumacher left to join Ferrari in 1996.

"This is the seventh year we are having the same conversations. Seven years," Chandhok told Sky TV.

"That's an awfully long time since Red Bull haven't found a second driver competitive enough to rack up the results and points that they need, since Daniel Ricciardo left at the end of 2018.

"All of these drivers that have come through, the Pierre Gaslys and the Alex Albons, they are all racking up results in other cars, aren't they? 

"There's something fundamentally that is not right in the way that car is designed or works for other drivers. It's so bespoke for Max. It's reminiscent of the Michael Schumacher-Benetton days.

"Schumacher left [after 1995] and the team won one race in the next seven years, having won two World Championships in a row and that's the risk [for Red Bull].

"If Max leaves, that whole operation will need to rethink the way they design their cars for other people.”

He added: "Yuki isn't a pancake. This [with the 2nd Red Bull driver] has been going on for a long time," he said.

"Maybe that's a sign. Of what? That you can decide yourself."

Tsunoda did impress Red Bull by quickly adapting to the RB21 in his first race weekend in Japan, having previously spent four seasons plying his trade at its sister squad Racing Bulls (previously AlphaTauri).

He finished inside the points in Bahrain, Miami and Imola, but has since struggled with lacklustre results, finishing 17th and 13th in Monaco and Barcelona respectively.

2016 F1 champion Nico Rosberg has sympathy for Tsunoda, saying the 25-year-old is capable of better performances than the results suggest.

"I make that Max Verstappen is a team-mate killer, without exaggerating. It's just horrible to be a team-mate next to that guy," Rosberg told Sky.

"No one gets closer than six tenths, which in F1, is like a different category. Poor Yuki, who's a fantastic driver, is in that right now, and really struggling. It's just so tough. He's doing laps that feel good and yet he's miles away. That's such a tough situation to be in.

"I struggle to understand why [the team can't engineer the car to Tsunoda's liking].

“Everything just points to Max Verstappen being so special. And that's the only thing you can say about that, because all these guys are great drivers. It looks like he's just on another level to everyone else."