Red Bull’s Max Verstappen believes the impact of a late yellow flag caused by Pierre Gasly’s spin at the final corner at the end of qualifying for the 2025 F1 Austrian GP was “not really that painful”, as his aborted lap would still have put him “miles off pole”.
Verstappen was on a flying lap, and crossed the second sector split 0.137s down on Lando Norris’ initial time of a 1:04.268 – which the Briton would eventually improve to a 1:03.971 – roughly means the Dutchman would’ve been at least four tenths back from the McLaren, even if he snatched a front-row start in the process.
“Miles off” pole even without late yellows
In the end, the reigning four-time F1 world champion could only manage seventh on the Austrian GP grid, and his Red Bull ended up almost a full second adrift of Norris’ late attempt, after having to back out of his lap following a late spin for Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, which triggered a double yellow flag:
“It would have been close potentially up until the yellow flag,” he told Sky Sports. “But that’s still miles off pole, you know, so that at the end it’s not really that painful.
“I mean, not [enough] to fight up front, for sure.
“The hotter conditions, they don’t help as well. So far this year, we’ve never really been more competitive in the race than in qualifying as well.
“So we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”
Hotter track temperatures “for sure” didn’t help
He had complained about balance issues in his RB21 throughout the qualifying hour, at one point citing difficulties in all of “high speed, medium speed and low speed”. When asked to explain what were the main struggles he faced in the session, the Dutchman explained how the balance of his car shifted from final practice to qualifying, mainly due to hotter track temperatures:
“FP3 wasn’t too bad, but somehow in qualifying it just completely disappeared, like there was not a single corner where I felt happy with the car.
“And that is of course then a big problem in qualifying.
“Every corner was a struggle, I just didn’t have the balance. It’s why the runs were all over the snow. Even every single lap that I did, I had a little bit different behaviour with the car. So, yeah, that’s not ideal.
“The hot conditions for sure are not that good for our car.”
No major setup changes make sudden change in balance even more “radical”
Verstappen said the team made no major setup changes between FP3 and Q1, and was left perplexed by the sudden shift in balance in qualifying for the F1 Austrian GP:
“No, we didn’t touch it at all,” he said of the setup. “It’s just very tiny little changes that shouldn’t influence the car balance. I mean that’s all manageable, but suddenly with the higher track temps and more wind, everything just fell apart.
“I didn’t expect it to be this radical, but I think no one did in the team. So that’s something that we have to analyse.”
Hoping to keep pace with Mercedes and Ferrari on Sunday
Looking ahead to the race, Verstappen isn’t optimistic of salvaging a podium from the Austrian GP, and said he’s not looking at the F1 weekend from a championship damage-limitation perspective, and instead the Red Bull driver looks to secure the best result possible:
“I mean, it depends how you look at it,” he said of the prospect of limiting damage in the championship. “I mean I don’t really look at the standings, I just want to do the best I can in the race weekend.
“Now hopefully tomorrow we can at least be competitive with Ferrari or Mercedes, I don’t know even.
“Because with the balance that I had in quali, for sure that is not going to look great for tomorrow, but we’ll analyse everything.”
