Verstappen needs rivals to “retire” as 'random' Red Bull changes backfire
Max Verstappen says he needs rivals to "retire" in order to move forward in Sunday's race.
Max Verstappen has ruled out his chances of fighting at the front in the Mexico City Grand Prix unless his rivals “retire".
Four-time world champion Verstappen had to settle with fifth place in a difficult qualifying and ended up 0.484 seconds off the pace set by McLaren’s Lando Norris, who stormed to an impressive pole position.
The result marked a blow for Verstappen in his incredible comeback bid to win this year’s world championship, with the Dutchman 26 points behind Norris and 40 adrift of leader Oscar Piastri, who starts down in seventh.
Verstappen had already outlined his fears that Red Bull would not be able to win in Mexico despite topping Friday practice, and those concerns remain.
“If we knew, we would change it and unfortunately we don’t,” Verstappen told Sky Sports F1.
“We’ve tried so many things and it’s not been good. It’s not the lack of trying, it’s not finding it.
“We went into Qualifying trying something again and we didn’t get it quite right in some corners. It made it better in some places, but in other areas more difficult and that didn’t allow me to push.
“I knew from the first run of Q1 that was not going to be it. Basically, everything we tried didn’t really work.
“There isn’t really a recovery drive when you have no pace. I need people to retire in front of me to go ahead.
“Every lap that I did this weekend has not been good. In the short run or the long run it never felt in the window and that is not going to suddenly change tomorrow for the better.”
Have Red Bull’s ‘random’ experiments backfired?
Verstappen, who has five wins in Mexico City, changed onto Yuki Tsunoda’s higher downforce set-up before qualifying.
It marked the latest change Red Bull made to Verstappen’s car during the weekend, something Jacques Villeneuve believes has backfired.
“It’s the first time we hear Max not being positive,” the 1997 world champion told Sky Sports F1.
“They’ve had lack of pace before but they’ve always managed to get into a window that he could work with, that he could be aggressive and bring the fight to the drivers ahead of him.
“When you listen to him now, already from yesterday, it doesn’t sound like that. It sounds like they just kept trying stuff on the car randomly, not because they had a direction, not because they thought ‘let’s move in this direction’.
“They even went with more downforce, which is something you never ever try. They changed the car set-up for qualifying. It sounds like they went the wrong way and now he’s stuck with it.”
In this article
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
With a sharp eye for F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor is the heartbeat of our unbiased reporting.
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
Joining Crash.net in 2021 as an Editor for the Indonesian Edition, Derry oversees most of the Indonesian articles on the site.
Rachit joined the Crash.net team in 2025 with a primary focus on F1 and sportscar racing.
He previously served as a news editor at Motorsport.com, where he played a key role in the day-to-day editorial operations.
