Max Verstappen's beautiful explanation on why he helps F1 rookies

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen praised the rookies in the sport while chiming in on his reason for helping them in their first year in F1. The Dutch driver has had a difficult weekend in Budapest thus far as the RB21 has consistently struggled with balance issues around the iconic Hungaroring circuit.

The four-time F1 world champion and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda have largely struggled to extract the maximum out of the 2025 challenger. The Japanese team exited the Q1 session and qualified P16 for the Hungarian Grand Prix, while Verstappen somehow managed to qualify for Q3 and finished in P8.

However, it wasn't his disappointing result that caught everyone's attention in the media pen, but his selflessness in talking to the rookies even after a difficult day. When he was asked about the same by Sky Sports' Rachel Brookes, Max Verstappen said:

“I mean, they’re nice guys and I have nothing to hide, so when they ask me questions or whatever, we have an honest discussion about things.”

Max Verstappen finished behind Kick Sauber driver and his friend Gabriel Bortoleto, one of the rookie drivers, in the qualifying by just 0.003s.

Max Verstappen analyzes his qualifying in Budapest

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that he was struggling for grip inside his RB21 for most of the weekend at the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix.

As per F1.com, the 27-year-old analyzed his performance over one lap and said:

“The whole weekend we have been off the pace and struggling for grip and it unfortunately meant that each lap in Qualifying was a struggle. We didn’t have a good balance of the car in the laps and had quite a low grip feeling on the front and rear axel. We tried a lot throughout the weekend and we didn’t get many answers.

Verstappen and Tsunoda were reliant on the Austrian team making overnight changes to the car to make it better for the competitive session; however, it wasn't the car, as the former added:

"Nothing made much of a difference, which was strange as we normally get a response when we change the setup of the car throughout the weekend. It wasn’t a great performance, but we did maximise everything that we could and we will investigate further ahead of tomorrow. We didn’t have great pace today and tomorrow it will be tough to pass the cars in front but you never know what will happen.”

Max Verstappen has not won a main race since Imola but managed a shock Sprint win in Spa last weekend. The Dutchman has previously won in Budapest, starting from 10th position in the 2022 season and again in the following year, this time from pole position.

Edited by Pratham K Sharma