Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is eager “to understand” his struggle for pace in Friday Practice for 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen endured two difficult Friday Practice sessions as he found himself eighth in FP1 and 0.888 seconds off the pace, then down to 14th in FP2 with a 1.167s deficit to McLaren’s Lando Norris who topped both sessions.
The four-time reigning champion explained to media after FP2 that balance wasn’t quite right but admitted that he couldn’t nail a specific reason behind the problem causing their struggle for pace.
“Today was quite tough and it was a low grip feeling in the car and not as balanced as we would have liked. It is difficult to say what the problem was, as nothing really worked, so we will have to investigate overnight as so far it has not been our weekend.
“Overall today wasn’t great so we need to understand what was causing the problems and I’m sure that we can do better and turn things around.”
Verstappen also found himself subject to a post-FP2 investigation after he threw a towel out of his cockpit midway through the session as he prepared for his soft-tyre qualifying simulation, but the team escaped severe punishment with a warning from stewards for his actions.
Reflecting on that particular incident, Verstappen explained that he had intended to safely dispose of it off track hence the investigation rather than risk it causing a safety issue between his feet.
“Instead of it potentially flying in between my feet, which would have been dangerous, I drove off the line and got rid of it in the safest way possible.”
Verstappen however refused to get on whether beating McLaren is possible as he believes that they are looking “strong” pace wise, so his priority is simply on ensuring that his car is competitive.
“The McLarens are looking strong so we will need to look at what we can do to be better.”
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