Ahead of the Hungary GP 2025, Max Verstappen walked a tricky line after two difficult practice sessions in Budapest. He addressed a bizarre on-track towel incident and didn’t hold back on describing his car’s poor handling.
Unusual towel drama triggers FIA investigation
Verstappen made headlines immediately after FP2, when he removed a towel from the cockpit and threw it out while driving. He said, “It’s just a towel that you normally wipe your face with when you come back in.”
“So it was still in the car when I went out, so instead of it maybe potentially flying in between my feet, which is the dangerous part, I drove offline and I got rid of it in the safest way possible, so I think the stewards understand that,” Verstappen countiuned.
The FIA notified Red Bull Verstappen would be investigated but later issued only a formal warning. The incident briefly overshadowed his performance on track.
Grip issues leave Verstappen frustrated
Despite McLaren dominating both sessions, Verstappen’s ailing RB21 struggled throughout Friday.
In FP1, he finished P9, trailing Lando Norris by nearly a second. Norris led McLaren’s 1–2 across both sessions, holding P1 in FP2 too, with Verstappen dropping to P14.
Over team radio in FP2, Verstappen described his car as “undrivable.”
The Dutchman said, “Yeah, today was very tough, just really low grip feeling and yeah, not really a balance in the car, so it’s difficult to say what is the exact problem, nothing really works.”
“This is something that we have to investigate overnight because so far of course it’s not been our weekend,” he added.
Optimism for turnaround while acknowledging limitations
Despite the clear performance deficit, Verstappen remains cautiously optimistic about improvements.
When asked whether past issues were redeemable by Saturday setups, the world champion said, “I’m sure we can do better, but today was quite bad, you know, so we need to really understand first where it is and what is causing us to have such a big problem with the car.”
“I mean the car looks really on and they’re flying, but yeah, next up of course I want to be a little bit closer to P3”
McLaren’s dominance and how others fared
Both free practice sessions were dominated by McLaren, Norris and Piastri topping FP1 and FP2. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc split the McLaren duo in both sessions, while Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso (returning from back injury) showed strong pace in FP2. Verstappen’s team-mate Yuki Tsunoda also featured inside the top ten.
