Last year, Sky Sports analyst Karun Chandhok judged Max Verstappen’s qualifying round in Suzuka to be ‘one of the best ever’ in the history of Formula 1. The one twelve months later is of the same high quality. “If I’m close enough, I know I can always make a difference,” believes the four-time world champion.
Max Verstappen is a phenomenon. And – by far – the best driver of the current generation in modern Formula 1. Even with significantly less material, his exceptional talent makes him a nuisance to the competition, this year especially the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who according to friend and foe (for now) have the best car of 2025.
But that alone is not enough in a man-to-man fight with Verstappen, as he proves once again and to his own surprise with a magical lap in Suzuka. “Fifth or sixth,” says Verstappen when asked what he expected from the qualification beforehand. “After the third training, we were able to find a bit more speed. The car is still difficult, not as I want it. We know that. But this lap was just very good.”
As often happens, Max Verstappen‘s class masks the flaws in Red Bull’s car. This was the case last year, and again in the first three races of 2025. “We’re currently in first place, but the problems are still not resolved,” he assures. “Throughout the season, it’s been difficult to find a normal, consistent balance. We’re obviously looking for that, but it wasn’t the case in the qualifiers either. If you look at my onboard, you can see it still doesn’t look good.” He laughs, “But it was at least good enough for pole.”
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Japan, he takes full credit for the pole position, although Verstappen quickly adds that it ‘also depends on others whether you can make the difference’. For instance, through the mistakes of colleagues. “They make more mistakes, I’m not surprised about that. If I’m close enough, I know I can always make the difference. At the moment, I don’t think we’re close enough, but today it worked out well.”
Verstappen hopes, expects, and more or less demands that the team now takes steps to permanently improve the handling of Red Bull’s RB21. Whether that will happen, he doesn’t know. “As I said: the problem is in the car, not in the driver,” he refers to his new teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who didn’t survive Q2. “Ultimately, the team decides who they put in the car. It doesn’t matter to me, I’m fine with it. But the focus should be on the problem: and that’s the car.”
“I have,” he continues, “been very clear to the team about what I want and how the car should be. In 2022 and 2023, it was somewhat more manageable… After that, we kind of lost our way. And it’s not up to the drivers to tune the car. Otherwise, we would have studied for it. Everyone tries to make the best of it, that’s not the issue,” he realizes. “It’s a matter of waiting to see what the engineers come up with, it’s up to them now. Whether I have confidence in it doesn’t matter. Those steps need to come now, that’s what it’s all about.”
