Max Verstappen could be extremely close to needing surgery

This is kind of an April Fools' Day post, kind of a tongue-in-cheek post, and kind of a 100% bitter reality post regarding the floundering state of a once flourishing Red Bull Formula 1 team, all at the same time.

If things keep going the way they have been going, four-time reigning Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen might very well need back surgery, given the way he has been completely carrying the Milton Keynes-based team on his back since last year.

After winning his first world title in 2021, and doing so for a Red Bull team placed second in the constructor standings, Verstappen was dominant in 2022 and 2023. He broke the all-time wins record for a single season with 15 wins in 2022, and he broke it again in 2023 when he won 19 of 22 races. He scored more points in 2023 than any other constructor, and he more than doubled the point total of teammate Sergio Perez.

But as far as him truly carrying the team, the 2024 season set itself apart.

Verstappen won the 2024 title, and in doing so, he became the first driver to do so for a team not ranked inside the top two in the constructor standings since 1983. He won nine races, which was still more than twice the number of races won by Lando Norris in the constructor title-winning McLaren.

But Red Bull's decline throughout the back half of last season was overwhelmingly evident, and it has continued into 2025. Liam Lawson, who replaced Perez, has already been demoted to sister team Racing Bulls in favor of Yuki Tsunoda after two poor outings to start the season.

The struggles go even deeper than that.

If you take a look at the seven most recent race weekends going back to the 2024 season, Red Bull drivers not named Verstappen have scored just two points. Every other constructor has scored at least 10.

Yet at the same time, Verstappen has only been outscored by Norris by two points: 121 to 119.

Where would Red Bull be with two drivers not named Verstappen, given how hard the RB20 was and now the RB21 is to drive?

Even if you quadruple that point total, they'd still be last in the constructor standings during that seven-race stretch.

Their struggles make it even more interesting to look back before the 2024 season began, when there were rumors about both Verstappen and engineering legend Adrian Newey leaving the team amid the internal accusations against team principal Christian Horner.

At that time, specifically when the conflict between Horner and Jos Verstappen broke out, there were also reports that Horner felt he could continue to keep the team performing at a high level without either individual remaining in the organization.

As it turns out, Newey did indeed leave for Aston Martin, the team's performance has been on a steady decline since, and now they are, quite literally, the worst team on the grid if you don't factor in Verstappen's innate ability to get more out of a car than humanly possible.

We've seen drivers outperform cars before. But this level of carrying the load is just plain absurd.

It's so absurd that nobody really even knows how good (or terrible) Red Bull are.

If you take the six most recent race weekends going back to last year, Verstappen has more points than anybody, even Norris (111 to 103). Yet Red Bull have been outscored by every other team on the grid with their second car – and again, they'd still be 10th and last in that category, even if you quadruple that car's point tally.

In other words, even with two drivers not named Verstappen, they'd still probably be last.

Perhaps Verstappen's "surgery" will come in the form of him signing on the dotted line with another team, because while his surgical precision on the race circuit is still taking Red Bull to heights they'd clearly be nowhere near reaching without him, who knows what the 27-year-old Dutchman could be doing for a team not so evidently on a steep decline?

One thing is for sure, though. If it comes down to that, Dr. Helmut Marko won't be performing the operation, as the ongoing patchwork at Red Bull seems to be slowly but surely coming undone.