Villeneuve warns Red Bull has 'lost its sparkle' after purging the team that built its dynasty

Jacques Villeneuve has delivered a damning assessment of Red Bull’s decline, warning that the four-time constructors’ champions have “lost its sparkle” and face a prolonged rebuild after a series of high-profile exits stripped the team of the architects behind its dominant era.

Speaking after the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, the 1997 world champion argued that Red Bull had become unrecognisable from the outfit that powered Max Verstappen to four consecutive drivers’ titles. “They rode the wave,” Villeneuve said. “Right now they’re going down, and they haven’t reached the bottom yet. So that’s a tough one. It’s lost its sparkle. Nobody talks about the Red Bull team as, ‘The crazy, fun, fast team. They will always find a solution.’ No, they’re not even part of the equation anymore.”

Villeneuve’s comments come against a backdrop of significant personnel losses at Milton Keynes. Team principal Christian Horner, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, legendary designer Adrian Newey and senior adviser Helmut Marko have all departed in recent years, though the precise circumstances of some exits remain unclear. Verstappen himself has been open about his uncertainty over his future, particularly as the sport moves into a new technical regulation cycle.

“He’s the only good thing in the team right now, other than the engine,” Villeneuve said of Verstappen. “It’s become a very political place in the last two or three years. There’s so much internal strife over who’s going to lead, who’s going to do that, and everybody’s been kicked out. It’s very difficult to see a good future at Red Bull.”

The Canadian was particularly pointed about the timing of the talent drain, noting that Verstappen himself only joined after the team’s foundations had already been laid. “Even Max arrived after the team had been built. He was the last addition to the team, but now he’s the last remaining soldier, and that makes it really, really tough because he cannot handle the team on his own.”

Villeneuve also flagged the apparent stagnation of Red Bull’s celebrated junior driver programme, which has historically produced a pipeline of talent for both Red Bull and sister team Racing Bulls. “Even Helmut Marko was pushed aside, and now it looks like the young driver programme is… Nobody’s talking about it anymore, so everything has kind of been destroyed and has to be rebuilt.”

Despite the bleak diagnosis, Villeneuve stopped short of writing off the team entirely, acknowledging that a recovery is possible — but insisting it will require patience. The scale of the task, he suggested, is considerable for a team that as recently as 2023 was winning races with near-impunity.