What’s behind Verstappen giving away even less to F1’s media than usual in 2025?

Max Verstappen and Formula 1 press conferences. At times, they can feel like a broiling extension of the circuit battlegrounds he’s made a career of carving up – but, not so, so far, in 2025.

As he appeared in the pre-event press conference for this weekend’s 2025 opener in Melbourne, Verstappen extended a run going back three events to the F175 Live season launch in London, which moved across the world via Bahrain testing to Thursday at Albert Park.

For nearly a month now, he’s been giving nothing away in public. More revealing have been his gaming streams – where he recently suggested ‘Drive to Survive’ had deliberately recast his reaction to losing to Lando Norris in Miami as being overly negative.

His answers on Red Bull’s new car have been vague even amid the game the teams require all their drivers to play at this time of year.

He’s not engaged in any of the big topics of the season so far – even the booing he and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner encountered at the O2. And we know from his father Jos that that experience did not go down well…

Take his answer to Autosport regarding the prospect of 2025 being a thriller to top even the unexpected twists and turns of last season, given how close things are right now between the four leading teams of McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.

“It would be nice, but it’s impossible to answer right now,” he said. “You can speculate about it, but it’s just a waste of energy to think about that yet.”

When asked to answer the same again in Melbourne – albeit framed in the guise of this title challenge possibly being his hardest yet, even topping that 2021 campaign against Lewis Hamilton – there followed essentially the same reply.

“I don’t know,” said Verstappen. “I don’t think about it. There’s no reason to think about that yet.”

This is still Verstappen – the driver who ranks his fiercest fights against Hamilton in 2021 even above races where he was objectively better in detonating the whole field in 2022 and 2023. We know, because we asked him to rank those performances.

The Dutch portion of the F1 press corps has noticed this pattern too – most likely concerned about the impact of Verstappen remaining tight-lipped on the traffic figures of their various publications. And so, they asked Verstappen about it later on Thursday.

The exchange went as follows:

Q: Is this the toughest media day of the year?

MV: Um, not really. I didn’t talk that much.

Q: That’s the thing, [right?]

MV: No, I don’t really care that much actually. We did some testing and now it is going to start. We’ll see for ourselves where we stand. I don’t have that much to say about it.

Q: I have noticed that in that press conference, also in Bahrain, and this one that you say a bit less than last year anyway for the general, does it also have to do with everything that has happened with the FIA swearing stuff?

MV: I mean, of course you also have to pay a bit more attention to everything. But on the other hand, I don’t have that much to report. Nor do I want to spend that much time on it. Just nice and relaxed.

Q: So, it’s not like you want to make a stand in that press conference?

MV: No, look, of course you can always fight against it. But that doesn’t always achieve much either. I don’t feel much like doing that either. I just do my thing over the weekend and then I go home. And then I’m busy with other things. This season is already busy enough, off the track too with other things.

Q: Marketing is not your biggest hobby. Can you use your status and tell Red Bull you don’t want to do that kind of stuff anymore? Like Lewis did at Mercedes?

MV: Well, more just about what I enjoy doing myself. What I always like is just serious, productive stuff. Not those nonsensical things. I don’t have much time for that. If it’s just constructive stuff that maybe you can also learn something from, I like to bring that kind of stuff out. They’re more fun things to do. Not the TikTok stuff.

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Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

There are several possible explanations to what could well be categorised as a ‘Westminster bubble’ story – albeit one that means fans ultimately miss out on what had previously been an engaging and intriguing aspect displayed by one of the best drivers in F1’s history.

Firstly, the time of year really matters. Although they have a good idea from testing, the teams don’t know exactly where they’re going to stack up in the 2025 pecking order with their new machines.

Red Bull has already said it is struggling to get the RB21 to respond how it wants it to with set-up changes, which will be critical to adapting the car to different layouts even as the team feels it is a stronger base, overall, than the RB20.

And so, this could all be an extension of how deliberately more muted Verstappen became in publicly criticising his team after his spectacular outbursts at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix. If it is to be more of the same for Red Bull this year, Verstappen clearly knows such a repeat won’t be helpful.

There is also the point above about how multiple world champions start behaving with the media side of their jobs once they’ve reached such a great level in terms of career achievements.

It has been suggested to Autosport that now, as a four-time world champion, Verstappen is only interested in engaging with bigger and broader publications, rather than the specialist interest drivers get at F1 events.

Gianpiero Lambiase, Head of Racing Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

And he has long found the media game frustrating – to a certain extent (more on this, later).

So, at 27 and with new experiences such as preparing for the birth of his first biological child, perhaps he simply isn’t engaging any more than strictly necessary per F1’s rules on media appearances.

And then there’s the FIA’s clampdown on driver expression and president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s quest to force out driver swearing.

Verstappen was the famous first casualty of this at last year’s Singapore GP – and it clearly (and absolutely should) rankles with him that Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was only fined and not handed community service for essentially the same infraction in the same press conference setting, two races later in Mexico.

Red Bull insiders suggest Verstappen’s current taciturn streak has most to do with a combination on the first and last points.

Although, rather than anything too specific about Red Bull’s new car, he simply has very little to say at this time of year given the lack of racing action and so is displaying exactly that.

Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, in the Press Conference

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Ultimately, it’s Verstappen’s prerogative and he’s not out to give the media any favours. Nor should he and it should be noted that he’s expressed what he has with good grace and generally with a smile too.

But it does chafe against the F1 fan culture of supporters wanting to consume ever more info about their favourite teams and drivers in this multi-faced and fascinating world.

It would have been great, for example, for Verstappen to have offered his thoughts on new Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar when asked in the Melbourne press conference. But he didn’t (although the question was multi-pronged and drivers are trained to answer just the first or final elements, if they can).

It can be predicted that Verstappen’s current approach will remain in place at least until he feels the need to get or give something oxygen – most likely in an attempt to gain in a sporting sense.

For instance, how he pointedly said he’d “lost all respect” for George Russell after their 2024 Qatar GP post-qualifying stewards’ room altercation – a massive mind game with the Mercedes driver, who later attempted to reply in kind.

But, if Red Bull really is off McLaren’s pace as testing suggested early in 2025, then Verstappen’s reticence will take on a whole new significance.