Max Verstappen experienced one of his worst qualifying sessions of the year in Spielberg on Saturday. The Dutchman qualified seventh, nine-tenths behind polesitter Lando Norris. Verstappen was disappointed afterward but also seemed resigned to his current situation.
“It didn’t go well yesterday either. Not on one lap, and the long run wasn’t strong either,” Verstappen began to dozens of journalists in the Red Bull Ring’s narrow mixed zone. “We were a bit more positive in the third free practice, but it still wasn’t good enough.”
“Everything felt bad in qualifying. Every corner was a struggle. I had no balance at all: sometimes it was understeer, other times oversteer. The car reacted differently every lap. The warmer conditions certainly didn’t help us.”
Verstappen could have worked his way up a few places if he hadn’t been hampered by a yellow flag in the third sector on his last run. As a result, he was almost a second behind Norris.
“In terms of deficit, this was definitely one of our worst qualifying sessions of the year. Everything suddenly felt bad in Q1 and it stayed that way. I won’t be fighting at the front tomorrow. The higher temperatures don’t help us, and besides, our car is usually no faster in the race than in qualifying this year.”
‘Upgrades not the cause of this problem’
His mediocre qualification was a major setback for Verstappen. Red Bull implemented quite a few upgrades to the RB21 this weekend and hoped that Verstappen could get closer to the McLarens again. The opposite turned out to be true. “I don’t want to talk about the upgrades, because they are not the cause of this problem,” Verstappen continued.
“But we have clearly taken a step back compared to the third practice. And that’s strange because we hardly touched the car between FP3 and qualifying. There was more wind, it was warmer, and that didn’t do us any good. You don’t solve these kinds of problems with a small adjustment to one of the wings.”
Verstappen sees no more positive points in the run-up to the race. “I didn’t expect it to be this bad. But I don’t think anyone on the team saw this coming. That is something we need to analyze.”
Verstappen wanted to add that his mediocre qualification was not due to the absence of Gianpiero Lambiase. His faithful right-hand man is absent due to private circumstances. It is the first time since Verstappen has been with Red Bull that Lambiase has not been there.
Verstappen says that he also gets along well with his replacement, Simon Rennie. “I know Simon very well and we have often worked together in the past. He has done a great job all weekend.”