Max Verstappen reacts to Liam Lawson outqualifying him for the F1 Austrian GP

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was complimentary of his ex-teammate and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson after the latter outqualified him during the qualifying session in the 2025 Austrian GP on Saturday. It was yet another difficult outing for the Dutch driver this year as he struggled with balance issues of his RB21 around the Red Bull Ring.

Verstappen, who has won five times previously at the track and taken the last five pole positions, was looking in contention for a second row despite his issues. However, he was unable to complete his final push lap due to the yellow flags brought on by Alpine driver Pierre Gasly's spin in the final corner.

Max Verstappen ultimately finished the qualifying session in P7, a place behind his ex-teammate Lawson. On his live stream for Team Redline, the four-time F1 world champion was pleased for the Kiwi and said:

“Yeah, absolutely. I was happy for him, it was a very good quali result.”

The 23-year-old was promoted to Red Bull at the end of the 2024 season but only completed two races this year before he was demoted back to the Faenza-based outfit.

In his post-quali interview, Liam Lawson denied having any feelings of revenge towards Max Verstappen ahead of the main race and reflected (via RN365):

"It's not revenge, I haven't really raced him at all, but it is a good position. We maximized today, but I don't expect to be racing him tomorrow, and some of the guys around us, but some of the guys behind, we will try that."

Lawson was replaced by Yuki Tsunoda at the senior team, who was unable to get out of the Q1 session in Austria.

Max Verstappen analyzes his P7 finish in Austria qualifying

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that he believed that "everything fell apart" for him in the qualifying session, as he could only manage a P7 finish in Spielberg.

Speaking with F1.com, the 27-year-old reflected on his result and said:

“Everything fell apart a bit. Every corner was a bit of a struggle, to be honest. No balance, no front, no rear in different places of the corner, so that made it very difficult to get in a rhythm and a bit of a benchmark. Even with the final lap, of course, I had a yellow, so I had to abort. "It was still not even close to pole, so that was quite a painful Qualifying for us. Tomorrow’s probably going to be even warmer than today. It seems like as soon as it got warmer, it made our struggles even worse. That doesn’t look great, but we’ll see tomorrow."

Max Verstappen will look to take maximum points out of the weekend and look for damage limitation for his driver's championship.

Edited by Tushhita Barua