Nico Rosberg deems Red Bull’s Max Verstappen teammate woes “inexplicable”

2016 F1 champion Nico Rosberg is baffled by Red Bull's woes with its second seat alongside Max Verstappen. In line with this, Rosberg gave a strong take after Saturday's qualifying session at the iconic Autodromo Nazionale Monza racing circuit.

In qualifying, Max Verstappen put his RB21 on pole position with a scintillating lap of 1:18.792 in Q3. His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was also able to put his challenger in 10th position, but was way behind Verstappen in terms of lap time. The former's best Q3 lap was only a 1:19.519.

Over the years, Max Verstappen has gotten the better of several drivers as his teammates, and other than Tsunoda, he also had the upper hand on Liam Lawson, Pierre Gasly, and Alex Albon (all three are on the 2025 grid with different teams) when they drove alongside him at Red Bull.

In line with Yuki Tsunoda's struggles in qualifying in Monza and how much, over the years, the Milton Keynes-based team has struggled with the second car alongside Verstappen, Nico Rosberg said the following via Planet F1:

"That’s inexplicable — like I don’t understand, because Yuki is great. He knows how to drive a racing car. How is it possible he’s just so far behind once again? It’s crazy that they can’t find a solution to that."

The 2025 F1 season is 15 rounds down, and Max Verstappen is currently sitting in third place (205 points) in the drivers' standings. His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, on the other hand, is down in P19 with only 12 points.

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Max Verstappen's take on 'fantastic' pole position in Monza

F1 Grand Prix of Italy - Source: Getty

Red Bull has not been able to provide Max Verstappen with the tools to consistently fight for pole positions and Grand Prix wins in the 2025 season. However, the RB21 has looked decent in Monza in terms of pace.

On the back of this, Verstappen secured a strong pole (as mentioned earlier) and added the following via the post-session interviews:

"Q3 felt good, happy with the laps and to be on pole here is fantastic. The car has been working well here the whole weekend and to be able to fight for pole I’m very happy." (Via The Guardian)

"We were still lacking a tiny amount, we made some final changes which allowed me to push a bit more, which is exactly what you need in qualifying. For us it’s a great moment."

In regard to the fast-approaching 2025 Italian GP, he added the following:

"Historically this season the race has always been more complicated for us but we’ll give it everything we have. That’s all we can do and we will see what happens."

Taking into consideration everything that has been discussed, several eyes will be on the #1 Red Bull challenger in the 53-lap race.