Max Verstappen dismissed claims that Red Bull upgrades at the 2025 Austrian GP were responsible for his poor qualifying performance, as the four-time world champion reveals the secret behind the tough Saturday and that is has nothing to do with upgrades, or Gianpiero Lambiase’s absence.
The defending champion may have just seen his already-slim championship hopes disappear over the horizon after a yellow flag forced him to abort his final Q3 run in Spielberg, relegating him to seventh on the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Outqualified by Racing Bull’s Liam Lawson, the Dutchman must pull off a miraculous rescue job on June 29 if he hopes to limit the inevitable damage he will take in the standings at the hands of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who start from pole and third.
His team lacked pace throughout the weekend but seemed as though they may have taken steps in the right direction following Free Practice 3, but couldn’t add extra time in the run-up to qualifying as they slipped behind McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.
“I think yesterday already was not good over one lap,” Verstappen told media, including Total-Motorsport.com, as he reveals the secret behind the poor qualifying at the 2025 Austrian GP. “The long run wasn’t good and today FP3 was a little bit more positive but still off.
“Then in qualifying basically everything felt bad. Every corner was a struggle, I just didn’t have the balance.
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“It was either understeer or oversteer. Even every single lap that I did I had a bit of a different behaviour from the car so that’s not ideal.”
This came on a weekend when Red Bull brought upgrades hoping to expand the working window of the RB21, so are they responsible for the poor pace? Verstappen reveals they’re not responsible for the Austrian GP qualifying result and he doesn’t want to hear that talk.
“I don’t want to talk about the upgrades,” Verstappen bluntly said. “Because I think it was not only the upgrades that caused all this.
“Just suddenly we really took a step back, which is not what you want from FP3 into quali.”
“Not a lot. Not to fight up front for sure,” Verstappen added at the Red Bull Ring. “For sure the hotter conditions they don’t help as well.
“So far this year we’ve not been more competitive in the race than qualifying as well. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”
He went on to add that he made minimal changes to the car and it shouldn’t have affected the balance of his RB21 in his failed quest for a third pole of the season, but conceded the weather conditions on the day ruined the gamble.
“That’s all manageable,” Verstappen concluded of his changes. “But suddenly with the higher track temps and more wind, it just fell apart,” he concluded.
Lambiase Absence No Factor in Result
Another thing that might have upset the weekend on the 27-year-old’s side of the garage is the absence of Lambiase, his partner in crime who serves as his race engineer as well as Red Bull’s Head of Racing – meaning his input over a weekend is vital.
The British-Italian engineer is not with the team for undisclosed personal reasons, but Verstappen doesn’t think the 44-year-old’s absence is why the team has struggled as he works with Simon Rennie instead for this single weekend.
“I knew that question was coming,” Verstappen said. “But I don’t think so. He did a good job so far this weekend.
“I know Simon already for a long time. He’s been with the team already for a long time, so it’s not super weird.
“Of course, I’m used to GP but Simon is also someone I have worked with a lot over the last years, in the simulator and meetings as well. So it’s nothing crazy.”
Rennie has worked with Alex Albon, Daniel Ricciardo and Mark Webber at Red Bull, whilst he previously also worked alongside Kimi Raikkonen at Lotus F1 and Fernando Alonso at Renault, the latter becoming a two-time world champion at the team.
He is currently is the Group Leader of Simulation Engineering at the Milton Keynes-based team, who won championships in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
