Max Verstappen spoke out after the Chinese Grand Prix and, more importantly, after seeing Liam Lawson—his teammate for the first two races of the season—replaced by Yuki Tsunoda.
In the two weeks between the Shanghai race and this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, Max made his opinion known without even speaking.
The four-time world champion “liked” a strongly worded post by former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde, which read: “I’m getting a bit tired of hearing people say that F1 is the toughest sport in terms of performance, and then when you don’t get good results, you suffer the consequences.”
“Yes, you have to perform. Of course, the pressure is immense. But in my opinion, this feels more like bullying tactics or panic-driven moves rather than real, high-level athletic decisions. They made a fully conscious decision to give Liam just two races, crushing him.”
A silent “like” from Max, but a loud and powerful message nonetheless—so much so that Helmut Marko publicly confirmed Verstappen’s disagreement with the decision made by Red Bull’s top management.
Today, Max had the chance to express his opinion in his own way: open, direct, and unfiltered. He does not agree with Lawson’s replacement, as the young driver faced a challenging situation for multiple reasons—mainly due to an RB21 that has fallen short of expectations and drivability, a concern Verstappen himself has long highlighted.
“I liked the post, so I think that speaks for itself, right? It wasn’t a mistake…”
“My reaction was shared with the team, but in general. I’m not just talking about the driver swap between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson, but everything. We discussed it last race weekend and again when we got back to the factory.”
“Do I agree with the team’s decision? Sometimes, you don’t need to share everything publicly. I believe our main problem is that the RB21 is not where we want it to be in terms of performance.”
“Everyone knows that both the team and I are focused on that. Because the sooner the car becomes more competitive and easier to drive overall, the sooner the second car will also be competitive. It’s a natural progression.”
“Liam has done about 11 races before 2025, but at different times. And for rookies, the start of the season is an extremely tough period because most of the tracks are new to them, or they’ve never driven on them before. Or they have to deal with a Sprint weekend. None of these scenarios help.”
Addressing the RB21’s issues, Max provided a clearer picture after the first two Grands Prix. The car is even more unstable and struggles in all phases of cornering. This suggests that the work done over the winter to make the 2024 car easier to drive—which had helped Max secure the title—has not only failed but has actually made things worse.
“The car is a bit more nervous, a bit more unstable in the different phases of the corners. I think it’s due to a combination of factors. It depends on corner speed, track surface, tires, overheating, bumps, and curbs. Some tracks limit us more than others. Some issues are easier to fix than others. We’re working hard to make the car faster.” – the four-time Formula 1 world champion added – “However, I don’t think just optimizing the package we have and extracting the maximum will be enough to fight for wins. But we’ll keep working. We’re trying to improve performance throughout the year, but it’s hard to say if it’ll be enough to beat McLaren. The others will improve too…” – the Red Bull driver concluded ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.
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