Max Verstappen explains ‘f**king disaster’ radio message

Max Verstappen has explained why he described his Abu Dhabi Grand Prix qualifying session a "f**king disaster", believing a team error was to blame for his issues.

Although Verstappen qualified sixth, he was almost two-tenths shy of Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and some eight-tenths adrift of pole sitter Lewis Hamilton.

The Dutchman defended his team radio comment, in which he called the session a "f**king disaster", because he believes he could have been much quicker had the team not overheated his tyres prior to his run.

"It’s just a natural reaction," Verstappen said of the comment. "I lost the car, I went off, so I was just disappointed I couldn’t finish that lap.

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"It was just in the heat of the moment as it was just not our qualifying [today]. I could feel straightaway I was sliding too much then of course you keep on trying and trying and it’s not working and when I went off I was like ‘ah for f**k sake’.

“They [the tyres] were a bit hot. I think they were too hot already before and I said maybe we should do something a little bit different.

"I went out of the box and they were even warmer so then I had to slow down even more and then at one point you can’t heat up your brakes like you want to into turn 1 and stuff, so yeah, it all got a bit compromised."

Despite a frustrated session, Verstappen believes he can make progress in the opening laps as the only car inside the top six starting on the quicker hypersoft tyre.

"At the moment I don’t see it as a negative because they will be worried that at the start I will be coming to them, so maybe it’s nice in a way that we are different. At least we have two cars with different tyres so we can do different things."