Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on Montmeló: frustration turned into learning. Max Verstappen reflects on his only regret of 2025.

Verstappen identifies the flaw in 2025

In the second half of the season, Red Bull made significant technical progress over McLaren, which has already begun looking towards 2026, while Milton Keynes continued to develop aggressively. Verstappen closed the gap to the championship leader, but Lando Norris’s last two victories pushed him back to 49 points behind. With just three weekends remaining, this deficit feels almost decisive.

It’s understandable that the world champion has some regrets, particularly given a weak start to 2025 and a zero in Austria caused by Kimi Antonelli’s mistake, without which Verstappen’s climb would have been less steep. Reflecting his mentality, Max Verstappen points to Montmeló as his main regret, where he lost control after the team instructed him to let George Russell pass to avoid a ten-second penalty during the final Safety Car restart. Initially, Max Verstappen lifted off the throttle, but then sought contact with the British driver at turn five. Penalized by the stewards, he was demoted to tenth place, despite being third with six laps to go. This restart error and subsequent frustration cost him 14 valuable points.

Verstappen’s words

“I’m satisfied with my season; the only issue was Barcelona. What happened there obviously wasn’t good, but it’s also because I care so much about what I do. I could have given up on a car that wasn’t fast,” Max Verstappen told his Dutch colleagues at Viaplay. “I was furious about what happened on the straight during the restart and at turn one. Then I got the radio message telling me to give back the position. At that moment, I got frustrated—it wasn’t nice, but you learn from these things. Moments like that probably won’t happen again.” – the four-time Formula 1 world champion pointed out.

“When I get out of the car, I can’t accept not giving my all—it makes me mad at myself. I can’t give 80%. I need to leave the car feeling I tried everything,” he added. “Performance-wise, I’m happy. Especially in qualifying, which at the start of my career was one of my weak points, I feel good about myself. I think I have maximized the potential of the car with the resources available.” – the Red Bull driver concluded.