IndyCar star pinpoints peculiar Max Verstappen vs Yuki Tsunoda divide after Brazilian GP

Four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen finished the 2025 Brazilian GP on the podium after starting from the pitlane, whereas his teammate Yuki Tsunoda struggled to even get near the points. IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi came out and pinpointed the Verstappen-Tsunoda divide after the race at Interlagos.

Red Bull had a disastrous qualifying at the Brazilian GP with Max Verstappen qualifying P16 and Tsunoda qualifying P19. Verstappen and Co. decided to break the parc ferme and make changes to the car, which led to an astonishing comeback from the pit lane.

Yuki Tsunoda, on the other hand, was the slowest car during the race and was last of the drivers who finished, as three cars retired. Alexander Rossi came out on the Off Track with Hinch and Rossi podcast and detailed how he followed the Brazilian GP from F1TV.

The Ed Carpenter Racing driver took to the onboard feature in the app and followed Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda's race from the same, and was able to decipher how the RB21 wasn't as compliant in both drivers' hands.

Yet, Max Verstappen was able to extract a lot more performance from the car than his teammate was able to, which was astonishing for Rossi.

“I was toggling between the onboards between Max and Yuki. Right? Yuki was last on pace, and Max was a threat to second and on the podium. And I'm pretty good at understanding what's going on behind the wheel of a race car. Max's car looked like it didn't look good,” said Rossi (37:00 onwards) Like it wasn't, the front end wasn't really sharp. You know, the power down was okay. Like it didn't look hooked up on rails like you expect to find one car to look. And I looked at Yuki's and it looked the same. Like it did, neither car looked good, yet somehow Max is like almost a second quicker. And I couldn't depict how he was achieving it,” added the ECR driver

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Alexander Rossi details how Yuki Tsunoda's setup led to Max Verstappen's qualifying woes at Interlagos

Max Verstappen finished P4 in the sprint race but was consistently complaining about the car bouncing all over the place. Going into the qualifying, the parc ferme had been removed, and Red Bull decided to give Dutchman Yuki Tsunoda's setup, as the Japanese driver made changes for the sprint race and started from the pitlane.

Alexander Rossi revealed how Tsunoda's feedback on the car being better after the sprint led to Verstappen making the decision.

“His feedback was, this is better. Let's do this for qualifying. So Max put on Yuki's setup. Okay. Probably for the first time in however long they've been teammates. Probably the first time Max has done that for any teammate since Ricciardo. And Max gets eliminated in Q1 on pure performance for the first time in his career,” said Rossi

After the poor qualifying result, Verstappen decided to make setup changes going into the main race.

Edited by Pranay Bhagi