Verstappen still wants to "solve some issues" with RB21 despite his pole position in Suzuka
Despite his surprise pole position at the Japanese Grand Prix, reigning champion Max Verstappen insisted that he still wants to solve a few issues with his Red Bull RB21 that has proved to be a tricky car to handle so far in 2025.
Max Verstappen was struggling for outright pace across the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday morning, but he managed to turn his fortunes around for the all-important qualifying session.
Following Friday's practice day, the reigning champion made a series of changes to his RB21, including tweaks to the weight distribution, aerodynamic balance, suspension setup, which has allowed him to take on the fight against the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The Dutchman delivered a brilliant lap in the closing stages of qualifying, posting a record-breaking time of 1m26.983s tp beat Norris and Piastri by 12 and 44 thousands of a second.
Asked about his sentiments after qualifying, Verstappen said: "A lot of happiness when I crossed the line. The whole qualifying, we just kept on trying to improve the situation a bit.
"And the final lap, honestly, it was very good. I had a lot of fun out there, being fully committed everywhere. Some places, not sure if I was actually going to keep it or not, but yeah, it was really nice. And also great for the team as well.
Having claimed his 41st pole position of his F1 career, Verstappen was unable to answer whether this one in Suzuka was the best pole of his Formula 1 career.
"It's difficult. I mean, I've had some really nice ones also in other places. But I think if you look at how our season started, even during this weekend... yeah, it's very unexpected, I would say. And I think that makes it probably a very special one.
" I mean, when I enjoy the track, it's anyway more fun to drive, right? So you have to be super committed. Sector 1 around here is crazy fast, but yeah, it's amazing in qualifying.
Having suffered two tough practice sessions on Friday, the reigning F1 champion said that his result was was unexpected, but it was down to the hard work that Red Bull put in to improve the balance of his RB21.
"Just throwing a lot of different things to try and make it more balanced, which is a bit of a difficulty for us at the moment. And even in qualifying that is still the same. I mean, I could be more committed, but... I mean, I'm on pole, but I'm still not happy with the balance of the car. But we are working on it. And yeah, for us this is a great little surprise.
"I mean actually it was a bit better. I think that issue was a lot better today. But at the same time, the through corner balance is still what we need to work on. But yeah, I think on low fuel over one lap, some bits you can mask a little bit. But it’s still not like I go into the lap fully confident and comfortable.
"So the last lap I was like, well, I'm just going to not try and feel uncomfortable – just send it in and see what we get. It’s very rare, of course, that a lap like that then can stick, but this time it worked well. We know that we have some issues that we want to solve, but it's clearly not easy to solve them at the moment.
