Max Verstappen has admitted that he’s struggling with confidence in his Red Bull machinery following a challenging red flag-laden Friday ahead of the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix. Talking with the media after FP2, the reigning champion isn’t yet “clicking” with his RB21 at Suzuka.
The four-time champion could only manage fifth fastest in the first practice session, trailing current championship leader Lando Norris by 0.556s. As he and his engineers hunted for a more optimum setup, he finished eighth on the timesheet in FP2 as the grid battled against what seemed to be constant red flags with Oscar Piastri leading.
While practice times aren’t necessarily reflective of the performance of the car, the Dutchman didn’t mince his words when it came to the challenges the track presented him with today.
“Yeah, I mean, of course, it was quite chaotic I think out there for everyone with the red flags,” he said following FP2. “And so we, of course, like everyone else, couldn’t complete all the things that we wanted to do.”
The lack of time on-track in FP2 won’t be helping the Red Bull garage today as not only Verstappen, but new RB21 pilot Yuki Tsunoda both need to put their hours in behind the wheel.
“Today has been quite difficult for me, just trying a lot of different things with the car. But it seems like a lot of things are not really clicking at the moment,” Verstappen said.
“And yeah, quite difficult just to put the lap down. You need a lot of confidence and commitment around here. And at the moment, I don’t feel like I can use that. So we still have a bit of work to do.”
FP2 saw a number of disruptions with Alpine driver Jack Doohan crashing at Turn 1 bringing out the reds. Fernando Alonso also came to a separate stop, beaching his Aston Martin in the gravel, and two grass fires were the cherry on top of the proceedings. Verstappen only managed 9 laps in FP2, severely limiting his learning.
Asked further about his comments on the car flexing, the driver didn’t delve too deeply into the subject but admitted the issue hasn’t been solved.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“No, it’s an ongoing process. I felt it maybe a bit more here. There’s quite a bit of warp in some places.
“So yeah, it’s something that we’re looking into.”
With the track resurfacing a story going into the weekend, he was asked about graining and the performance of the RB21 on its tyres.
“Not so much [graining] for us. But I was on the soft. So that tyre requires a lot of management anyway.
You can’t really push that tyre.
“And then I only did like three laps at the end. So not really a good read. So I think tomorrow, potentially in FP3, you will see a lot of teams trying to do a bit more of a long-ish run with the time that you have. But yeah, it’s not been an easy day.”
The swapping of Liam Lawson for Tsunoda has done little to improve Verstappen’s mood this season, with him publicly disagreeing with the move when he endorsed former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde’s criticism of the decision.
“Well, I liked the text, so that speaks for itself, right?” Verstappen confirmed. “It was not a mistake.”
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