Max Verstappen said Red Bull weren’t quick enough to qualify on the front row in Shanghai, despite taking second on the grid for the sprint race.
He fell short of beating Lewis Hamilton to pole position by just 0.018 seconds. Verstappen, who was only 16th in the single practice session after aborting his soft tyre run, said he was “very happy” with the result.“I do think that in the first practice we were quite a bit off, so I’m very happy to be on the front row,” he told the official F1 channel.
“The lap was very good. It’s always very tough, when you go from a medium [tyre] to a soft, to nail the lap with no references.
“Of course when you look at it, it was 18 thousandths or something off pole, but I don’t think we should have even been on the front row anyway. I’m very happy to be second.”
Although Verstappen’s deficit in practice was exaggerated by circumstances, he said it was clear their RB21 isn’t quick enough to challenge McLaren yet.
“I don’t think the balance is massively off, we’re just too slow I would say,” he explained. “But this is good for us, it’s a little motivation boost I think as well for everyone that we keep nailing the laps, we keep trying to maximise everything that we’ve got, and you need to do that as well, at the same time when you’re maybe struggling a little bit more for pace.”
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Lando Norris, who beat Verstappen to victory in the opening race last week, will start sixth. Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren will line up one place behind Verstappen in third.
The Red Bull driver is unsure he will be able to keep the McLarens behind in tomorrow’s 19-lap sprint race.
“I think they looked very fast up until that last run,” he said. “So I think it will be very hard to keep them behind.
“But hopefully it will be fun, hopefully, we are all, I wouldn’t say close, but at least that we can race a bit around, that would be nice for me.”
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MG1982 (@mg1982)
21st March 2025, 8:45
Oh please…..
OOliver
21st March 2025, 9:53
Exactly.
The car may have a small operating window but slow it is not.
stefano (@alfa145)
21st March 2025, 10:21
to gauge the car a bit better, as it is usually done with every team, let’s see how the second driver does.
Craig
21st March 2025, 10:22
Indeed. Much as I joke about Red Bull going through a period similar to Repsol Honda where their bike only worked for Marc Marquez, hurling anyone else off at the first opportunity, it does increasingly seem to be the case (though with somewhat less physically severe consequences for the driver).
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
21st March 2025, 10:24
Gasly, Albon, Perez and now Lawson beg to differ.
w0o0dy
21st March 2025, 16:56
I guess Max feels the McLarens are much faster but they didn’t string it together without mistakes and he sort of did. They does t mean the car is actually fast. It’s quick enough to pick up pieces of others fail.
Doggy
21st March 2025, 12:13
Please remind me, where did Lawson finished in qualy?
That is why LH and MV are world champions. Had either of them driven the McLaren, would’ve been pole by a bigger margin.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st March 2025, 12:32
You can’t use lawson, perez, albon or gasly as examples, they’re clearly driving worse at red bull than they were\are the rest of their career at midfield teams; as someone above said, red bull has a narrow operating window.
If you take for example ricciardo of old, he wasn’t as fast as verstappen, but he was still driving the car ok.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st March 2025, 12:33
But no doubt the mclaren drivers are not maximising the potential.
Edvaldo
21st March 2025, 12:40
C’mon Man. Don’t do that.
Lawson is the living proof Red Bull isn’t looking for the best drivers for that seat even within the drivers they have signed.
He’s not a reference for anything.
Doggy
21st March 2025, 13:59
I agree with you in the sense that they are not looking for the best driver available.
Yet, in my opinion, Lawson is not the worst driver in the grid. He showed promising signs last season.
Who would you have put in that seat then?
1) Sainz who is so much more expensive and is getting beat by Albon? 2) The hulk who got beat by Perez when they were team mates?
3) Bottas who is at the tale end of his career and arguably at the same level as Perez?
4) Maybe Yuki ? But Lawson performed just a bit sub-par vs him last year in his rookie season.
Edvaldo
21st March 2025, 14:08
Honestly? Any of those would be better simply because they wouldn’t be burning Lawson so early and so fast.
Of all the drivers drivers that made the jump to the main team before they were ready, starting with Kvyat, not even one lasted there.
If they demote Lawson back to the supporting team, they won’t ever call him back to Red Bull, just like they did with Kvyat and Gasly. They’ll be looking for the next guy already.
David BR (@david-br)
21st March 2025, 8:49
Max channelling Fernando here, “we’re really not good enough to be on the front row, don’t know how that happened (oh yeah, me)” :)
If you’ve got it, flaunt it I guess.
kuvemar
21st March 2025, 9:18
Except Alonso really drags cars that aren’t even good enough for points into the points after completing the first lap on 2 tires. There are some drivers who can work absolute magic with mediocre cars, as evidenced by Alonso, Senna, Leclerc and others. I’m not convinced we’ve seen that from Max yet. Horrible team mates that get a second class treatment aren’t evidence of your car being bad.
Doggy
21st March 2025, 12:20
Are you new to formula 1? Max wins in his debut with a toro rosso, had at least one win in each season (no body in the grid has done that btw), but yeah, he has not demonstrated enough. OK.
Same with Lewis. Both of them are miles ahead of the rest (minus Alonso who is also a beast)
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st March 2025, 12:38
He didn’t win with a toro rosso, that was vettel! Nothing against verstappen, 4th is still a great result in 2015 with toro rosso, but far from a win.
As for hamilton, depends if he’s on form, in his last years at merc he wasn’t closer to verstappen than others were and leclerc was the 2nd best driver last season.
SteveP
21st March 2025, 15:36
Nobody?
From 2007 – 2021* at least one win in each season (15 seasons) – guess who?
Maybe call back when Max has done 15 seasons and see if he can manage the record.
SteveP
21st March 2025, 9:43
As long as he doesn’t start believing his own hype.
Realistically, I think he wrung a third place out of the car, at the same time as Lando threw away a front row spot, and thus gifted him P2.
Without the ‘extra’ the position should probably have been P4/5
Lawson? He’s not that bad, what the heck is happening there?
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
21st March 2025, 10:31
What’s happening with Lawson? He’s driving a midfield, car, definitely slower than dominant McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, which his team mate, the Greatest of All Time, can squeeze every single milisecond from.
There was nothing wrong with Gasly, Albon or Perez either (the same Perez who beat Hulkenberg, Ocon and Stroll during their seasons together). Lawson is just experiencing first hand what kind of monster Max is and I keep my fingers crossed Tsunoda is in that seat this year, so at least some people may finally open their eyes as to what is a very simple answer to these questions.
anon
21st March 2025, 10:41
SteveP, I suspect this is more about Max choosing what message to send to his fans to get them to do the work of building up hype around him.
As for Lawson, Horner and Marko have been saying for some time now that the second driver at Red Bull is always going to get the bare minimum level of support because they don’t think it’s worth investing anything into them. To be blunt, there’s a lot more money that can be extracted from Verstappen’s fan base than there will be from Lawson, and the amount of support they give their drivers reflects those commercial realities.
John
21st March 2025, 11:31
Absolute nonsens again. Show me where Horner and Marko have said this. Feeding the feud again with gossip and trash now it seems Verstappen is not excluded for a possible worldtitle. Apparently this is why trah newspapers are doing so well in Brittain: people just live on trying to harm others, spray hate.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st March 2025, 12:41
I think anon often says accurate stuff, but in this case I’ve heard a lot of comments by horner about trying to do what they can to get perez up to speed, that their preference is to continue with the current driver, etc.
Remember, they spent 15 millions or something to get rid of perez early, they wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t thinking another driver could do better, perez had even a lot of sponsorship and a lot of fans in america.
David BR (@david-br)
21st March 2025, 10:52
My view? The only drivers who’d be a sensible hire for Red Bull in the second car, presuming they want someone faster than Pérez, would be Russell or Sainz – that’s excluding the McLaren and Ferrari drivers who’d be too competitive, and all the rookie or near rookie drivers without the experience to make an immediate impact in the team. Anyone jumping into the team needs to be swimming fast from the start.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st March 2025, 12:43
And they had a chance to get sainz, which they blew last year, which was bad for both parties: a top team without a remotely decent second driver and a top driver (based on what he showed till 2024) on a midfield team.
David BR (@david-br)
21st March 2025, 14:56
@esploratore1 Totally. Sainz has shown he can stay close to a faster driver cover a season, remain consistent and finish higher or win when the ‘first’ driver is off form or has some issue oor simply in conditions that match Sainz’s talents. Precisely what Red Bull need.
MichaelN
21st March 2025, 10:30
He’s right, though. Leclerc should be up there ahead of Hamilton, as should Norris who bungled his laps, and Piastri didn’t deliver like in earlier parts either.
Verstappen on P5 seemed more likely, but then again, this is part of why he’s the champion and others are not.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st March 2025, 10:47
Yeah, it really was down to Max getting all sectors right (just like Hamilton) while Piastri wasn’t able to get it quite there and both Norris and Leclerc making mistakes when it counted. I do think that we have a decent chance of the rest of the season being about exactly this – who get’s the tyres fired up and manages to string together the lap at the right moment.
If Mercedes finds out where their pace went, they will be in that mix as well, making it even better. I hope the race delivers as well.
David BR (@david-br)
21st March 2025, 10:55
@bascb which is what Formula 1 should be about! Putting in the near perfect lap among a close field.
SteveP
21st March 2025, 11:54
I’m going with Lewis being right:- he didn’t get everything right, he knows there are places he could have done better.
w0o0dy
21st March 2025, 16:59
Exactly. All the speed is useless if you throw it away. And Max is greatful to pick up the pieces the others spull at this point in the season.
FW11B (@fw11b)
21st March 2025, 8:57
I have a feeling he is going to whine the entire season, even if he wins a fifth straight championship…
BasCB (@bascb)
21st March 2025, 10:45
Probably, yeah.
MacLeod (@macleod)
21st March 2025, 13:33
Whine you know Max have to talk which he doesn’t want. Otherwise you would hear nothing from Max…….
David West
21st March 2025, 9:08
He’s dragging that tractor along again I see.
David BR (@david-br)
21st March 2025, 14:58
Maybe Jeremy Clarkson is his ideal team mate? :)
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
21st March 2025, 10:15
Max is absolutely spot on, as usual! 2025 Red Bull is a midfield car, as proven by Lawson and his struggles. Max is simply channeling his inner 1997 Schumacher, who put his midfield Ferrari near the top in qualifying, while his team mate Irvine, a good driver, couldn’t do anything with it (Brazil 2nd/14th, Monaco 2dn/15th, Canada 1st/12th, Belgium 3rd/17th, Luxembourg 5th/14th, while during the rest of weekends even if positions were closer, Schumacher was still 0.3s-1s/lap quicker than Irvine).
Why is it so difficult for some to accept Max is indeed the Greatest of All Time and doing exactly the same to his team mates as other great drivers in the past (like Schumacher, Senna, Clark etc.), but it’s even more impressive because he has no advantage like tailor-made tyres or better engines?
John
21st March 2025, 11:24
Sure, here we go again with escape from reality. Sure a Brit ? What a nonsense and absolute not in line with reality. So you say that Verstappen has had all horrible teamates and a top of that a second class treatment. So that are Sainz, Albon, Ricciardo, etc. Poor delusional you.
fawkes
21st March 2025, 14:55
If Max can get away saying this I would say Hamilton just made the pole for sprint in the fourth fastest car based on Australia because yes.
C’mon if the car is second best in a qualy it is his potential. This has nothing to do with it being easy to achieve or operating windows. The fact is that it is possible to be at least second best with this car.