Red Bull driver Max Verstappen admitted he was very pleased to win the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix despite driving what he felt was an inferior car.
Verstappen won his first race of the F1 2025 championship at Suzuka, coming home a second clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris after fending off pressure from the British driver throughout the entire race.
It’s been a solid but unspectacular start to the season for Red Bull, whose RB21 doesn’t yet appear to be a match for McLaren’s pace-setting MCL39.
With McLaren winning the first two races of the season, in Australia and China, Verstappen underlined his championship potential by securing an unlikely pole position at Suzuka on Saturday.
With overtaking very difficult at Suzuka, the Dutch driver weathered the pressure of the two pursuing McLarens for the entire 53 lap race on Sunday but didn’t put a wheel wrong to take the win and kick off his title defence properly.
After three races, Norris leads the championship with 62 points, a solitary point clear of Verstappen.
Speaking afterward about his pride at how Red Bull has dug deep to help him deliver the result, the four-time F1 World Champion jokingly told Viaplay that, if he was driving the faster McLaren, things could be very different.
“I’m very happy with what I’m doing right now. But I could think what would happen when I would be in that other car,” he said, to which he was asked, “the McLaren?”
“Yes, you wouldn’t see me anymore!” Verstappen said, with the reporter quipping back, “You would have been in Tokyo already!”
“Exactly!” was Verstappen’s response.
Speaking in the FIA press conference after the chequered flag, Verstappen acknowledged how his victory doesn’t yet mean that Red Bull’s performance deficit with the RB21 has vanished as he was asked how close he feels to the ultimate potential of the car he and his team are.
“I think we know our limitations, so we just have to try and run against that limitation as much as we can,” he said.
“But yeah, it’s still not fixed. So this is hopefully going to be fixed soon, but I cannot give you a timeline on that; it’s just about trying to find that limit, which is really sensitive for us at the moment.”
Having taken such an unlikely victory at a race track where McLaren were favourites to continue their run of wins, Verstappen’s interruption of that spell saw the Dutch driver explain that he is taking pride in his own driving standards at present.
“I mean, it also means I really care, even though, of course, it’s not been the easiest start to the year for us,” he said.
“We are not where we want to be in terms of performance – I think that’s no secret.
“But yeah, this weekend, it’s just been really, really nice. Sometimes you have those kind of moments where then you get some really great laps out of it.
“Luckily, of course, the balance also got a bit more together throughout qualifying. So, yeah, you just have to keep on working. I mean, it’s nice, but I’m a person…. I don’t listen to the positives and the negatives.
“I’m just in the middle, so I just focus on my own performances and just keep working. Keep grinding.”
With Verstappen defeating Norris with a less competitive car than the British driver, Norris was asked whether a weekend like Suzuka proves that Verstappen will be a championship contender despite not being in the quickest machine.
“I get a lot of questions like, ‘Are you surprised [by] Max when he does a day like yesterday or a race like today?’ I guess people always expect me to say yes, but I don’t think there is a reason to be,” he said.
“I don’t need anyone to tell me what Max is capable of doing or whether I should think this or that.
“I don’t need people to tell me these things, and people seem shocked when I say I’m not surprised and stuff like that.
“But I know how good he is. I know what he’s capable of doing, so I would say nothing is a surprise anymore.
“But I still believe that we’re gonna have some good races, and we can go toe to toe and that, some days, he’ll come out on top, and others, I will.
