Lawson would be "faster with Racing Bulls", claims Verstappen

Following the persisting troubles for the Liam Lawson, reigning world champion Max Verstappen insists that his new team-mate would be quicker in a Racing Bulls car than in the RB21.

Following his troubles in Australia, Liam Lawson was eager to get on top of his issues with the RB21 in China. However, the Kiwi was unable to make a good impression in sprint qualifying on Friday, suffering an early exit in SQ1.

He then had a series of entertaining battles in the 19-lap race which included an elbows-out overtake of Jack Doohan, as he climbed from P19 to P14 at the flag.

Despite the positive end to his sprint race, Lawson once again had a scrappy time in qualifying though as he lacked confidence behind the wheel of his car, and suffered an early Q1 exit.

Speaking to De Telegraaf, Verstappen noted: "If you look at the difference between the two drivers at the other teams, they are all closer together. It also shows that our car is extremely tough. I think if you put Liam in the Racing Bulls' car, he will go faster. I really think so.

"That car is easier to drive than ours. I also notice that when I talk to Liam. Last year, I didn't think the difference between him and Yuki (Tsunoda) was that big. Otherwise the team wouldn't have made the choice to put him in at Red Bull either," concluded the Dutchman.

Verstappen finished third in the sprint, while he secured fourth place on the grid for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix. Despite the relatively promising results, the four-time world champion was not delighted with the balance of his RB21.

“We were just a bit too slow today and I think we had quite a big gap to those out in front. It is quite difficult as we were really struggling for grip, which didn’t allow me to push hard. In some corners we had different balance, so it was hard to get good references for every single lap. I think it will likely be quite similar to tomorrow and tough on tyres.

"I tried to do the best that we could and get the best lap possible, but it wasn’t easy. In the Sprint today we still finished P3, even though we did have a bit of degradation, so that was a good result for us.

"We will try and maximise everything that we can and the team will work hard to make some changes in the car that I hope will make things better for the race."