Max Verstappen makes his feelings known after securing front row for the F1 Chinese GP sprint

Max Verstappen qualified second for the Chinese GP Sprint, 18-thousandths of a second shy of Lewis Hamilton's pole laptime. Bagging in his first front row start for the 2025 season, the Dutchman shared his feelings in a post-qualifying interview.

Red Bull started their 2025 campaign on the back foot as McLaren became the team to beat after winning the constructors' title. At the pre-season testing in Bahrain, McLaren lit up the timing screens while the RB21 was throwing tantrums and posed to be slower than its competition.

With Lando Norris winning the Australian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen lost the drivers' championship lead for the first time in 1029 days and put his head down on maximizing the results for the 2025 season. The reigning champion put in a strong lap in SQ3 and claimed a front row start ahead of McLaren's Oscar Piastri.

Satisfied with his qualifying run, Verstappen shared his thoughts in the post-qualifying interview, and said:

"I'm very happy. Yeah, I mean I do think that in the first practice, we were quite a bit off. So, I'm very happy to be on the front row honestly. That lap was very good, it's always very tough when you go from a medium to a soft [tires] to nail the lap with no references. Of course, when you look at it, it was 18-thousandths or something off pole but I don't think we should have been on the front row anyway so, I'm very happy to be second."

McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris qualified third and sixth respectively.

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Max Verstappen comments on Red Bull's ability to take the fight to McLaren

Max Verstappen at the F1 Grand Prix Of China - Source: Getty

While the papaya duo has qualified behind Max Verstappen for the Chinese GP Sprint, the Dutchman is aware of the performance advantage that McLaren has. Moreover, when asked about whether he would be able to take the fight to the McLarens, he said (via Formula 1):

"I think it will be tough in general, because they are very fast, very competitive, very all-round. But at the end of the day, I don’t really think about that too much. I just want to focus on our own car. We just try to work from there, because that’s the only thing that we can control anywaye."

Meanwhile, Max Verstappen's teammate, Liam Lawson qualified plum-last for the Sprint race. The New Zealander botched his final run in SQ1 and apologized to the Red Bull pitwall for the mishap.

So, there is a high chance that the Dutchman will be leading the way for the Austrian team in the Sprint race, while Lawson will get another chance to redeem himself at the qualifying for the race on Sunday, and the Chinese Grand Prix itself.