Max Verstappen claimed his Red Bull RB20 was “not drivable” during the top-10 Q3 shootout of Saturday’s Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix qualifying session.
Red Bull’s car troubles persisted at Monza, with the reigning champions on a run of feeling at least second best race to race.
Verstappen’s frustration through qualifying peaked after the first runs in the Q3 top-10 shootout, where he posted the eighth-fastest time just before telling Race Engineer Gianpiero Lambiase; “I had no ****ing grip at all on this set [of tyres], shocking.”
Things didn’t improve much for the Dutchman in his final Q3 run, with his best effort rewarding him with seventh, 0.695s off of the top time set by polesitter and championship rival Lando Norris.
The Dutchman was left confused post-qualifying with bouts of understeer plaguing him throughout Q3, an issue that wasn’t apparent during Q1 or Q2.
“For whatever reason in Q3 I picked up a lot of understeer on both tyre sets,” Verstappen explained.
“This is something that I don’t understand at the moment. I mean, it was just not drivable anymore. I couldn’t attack any corner.
“Yeah, so that’s something that is very weird.
“I mean, going four-tenths slower than we did in Q2 is just not normal.
“I already had the same problem on the lap before, you know, on the other tyre set. So, it was just not working for whatever reason. I think the temperature dropped a little bit.”
Verstappen believes that under normal circumstances, a temperature shift wouldn’t account for such a swing in tyre behaviour and the only explanation he could offer was that “it felt better on a scrub tyre for me than on a new.
“But, yeah, still, I mean, the balance difference that I had in Q3 was very weird. I never experienced something like that before.”
Verstappen’s quali time saw him several tenths adrift of the top six, comprised of Norris, Oscar Piastri, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton.
With that pace deficit and even with Red Bull’s long runs, looking good “on paper,” Verstappen has counted himself out of a victory charge.
“You cannot win when you’re too slow,” said Verstappen, whose last victory came at Barcelona in May.
“The long runs, they might look good on paper, but it didn’t really feel like that personally.
“The problem is that when you don’t have a balanced car, of course, in the race that is quite painful on tyres also. So, let’s see.
“I mean, maybe with how the car is at the moment it might be a little bit better for the race. But we’re also starting in the back of, let’s say, the top group.
“So, we just have to wait and see what happens in front of us. There are a few unknowns with the grading, actually, as well. We’ll find out tomorrow.”
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