Marc Priestley thinks Max Verstappen hated looking like an ‘amateur’ during the Australian GP

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Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen wouldn’t have expected that the prevailing moment of his Australian Grand Prix weekend would be flying into the barriers at the start of his first flying lap in qualifying.

As soon as Max Verstappen hit the brake pedal heading into turn one on his first flying lap of qualifying, he knew something was wrong with his Red Bull car.

His qualifying session was over, and the Dutchman would be starting P20 on the grid. Red Bull couldn’t even tell Martin Brundle what went wrong with Verstappen’s car, heightening the concern about what could happen in the race.

In the end, it was a mechanical issue that forced his new Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar to retire, which Verstappen managed to recover from to sixth.

The fact that Oscar Piastri and Andrea Kimi Antonelli suffered similar crashes across the race weekend suggests Red Bull weren’t the only team struggling to get to grips with the new cars, but former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley thinks Verstappen will still be very upset with how the weekend played out.

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Marc Priestley thinks ‘grumpy’ Max Verstappen would have hated looking like an ‘amateur’ in Australia

Speaking on the Chequered Flag Podcast after the race about the four-time world champion, Priestley explained: “He’s grumpy. He doesn’t like the cars. Doesn’t like this era of Formula 1.

“The reason he’s grumpy is he’s not a fan of where we’re going with Formula 1 as a whole, and he’s been very vocal about that.

“But in qualifying, in the first part of qualifying when he had his accident, I don’t think it was a driver error accident.

“He had the rear axle lock, and that was at least in part, I think largely to do with the complex systems that run the energy harvesting going into that corner.

A first fastest lap of the season for Max Verstappen! Where would he have finished if he started in the top 10?

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“So he was just a passenger. He hates that.

“He’s a very, very highly competent driver, four-time world champion, and yet he looked amateur, and I think he hates that. So, he did recover it well.

“20th up to sixth, good recovery drive. The one thing I’m really intrigued about, and I don’t think we know from this weekend, is how good is that car in the hands of Max on a clean weekend, and I can’t wait to find that out.”

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Max Verstappen experiences his worst start to an F1 season since 2022

The 2020s could easily be described as the Max Verstappen era of Formula 1 after winning four championships on the bounce.

Lando Norris finally ended that run last year, but typically, Verstappen either finishes on the podium or doesn’t finish the race at all in each year’s season opener.

After finishing as runner-up to Norris last season, Verstappen won back-to-back races in Bahrain in 2024 and 2023. However, he failed to finish from the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, with both himself and Sergio Perez suffering from fuel issues.

The Dutchman still went on to win the title that year, and it’s the first time since 2018 that Verstappen has taken the chequered flag and not been on the podium.

Verstappen is pushing hard for F1 rule changes already, and that could benefit him going forward.

However, Red Bull will also know that they can’t afford to fall too far behind the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari, otherwise Verstappen’s future in F1 will once again start being discussed.