Max Verstappen reiterated that Red Bull are not the quickest team heading into the 2025 season-opening Australian Grand Prix this weekend, Afrosport reports.
The Dutch driver heads to Melbourne as the reigning world champion and will be aiming to win a fifth-consecutive title, a record set by Michael Schumacher for Ferrari between 2000 and 2004.
Verstappen is however not the favourite in Melbourne, with the bookmakers going for McLaren’s Lando Norris who had the fastest car last season.
“…We will try to do our best. There’s not really much we can do. I think there wasn’t many days. We found that there are already a few areas that we can work on, so we will continue to do so,” he said.
“I know that we are not the quickest at the moment. Again, it’s a very long season. If you would have asked that question here last year and at the end of the season again it looked completely different. A lot of things can always change quite quickly in Formula 1.”
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Meanwhile, Norris played down Mclaren having the edge in Melbourne despite appearing to have strong pace during pre-season testing in Bahrain.
“I don’t think in any way we’re superior to any of our main competitors – there’s obviously been a lot of chat [about] that and a lot of things said over the past couple of weeks, but I really don’t think we’re any further ahead of our competitors than we were last season or that people think we are,” the British driver said.
“I still think it’s going to be a tough weekend for us and we’re going to be fighting everyone, but I think we’re in a good position to start off in a strong way and in a confident way. That’s what we want to be in and that’s how we want to start the season.”
Norris finished third in last season’s Australian Grand Prix behind the Ferrari duo Carlos Sainz (now at Williams) and Charles Leclerc.
