Max Verstappen was left frustrated after a tough qualifying session at the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix, but despite Red Bull being “miles off” the pace of the front-runners, he insisted it “wasn’t painful” to miss out on pole.
The Dutchman equalled his worst qualifying result of the season from Bahrain with a seventh-placed result in the Saturday session.
Verstappen was more than six tenths off Lando Norris after his first run in Q3, his lap only good enough for sixth.
He was not able to complete his final run as Pierre Gasly spun at the final corner, bringing out the yellow flags, which affected the final part of his lap.
To make matters worse for him, the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson managed to squeeze past him with a lap, dropping him down a place at the Red Bull Ring, the team’s home track.
Speaking to the media after the session, Verstappen reflected on his struggles and the challenges that left him unable to mount a serious pole position threat, but admitted it wasn’t the end of the world for him.
“It would have been close, potentially up until the yellow flag,” Verstappen explained.
“But we were still miles off pole, so in the end, it is not really that painful.
“FP3 wasn’t too bad, but somehow in qualifying, [the balance] just completely disappeared, like it was only a single corner where I felt happy with the car – and then that is a big problem in qualifying.
“I don’t really look at the standings, I just want to do the best I can in the race weekend, and hopefully, in the race, we can be competitive with Ferrari or Mercedes.
“I don’t know, because with the balance I had in qualifying, it is not looking great for tomorrow, but we will analyse everything.”
Verstappen refuses to attribute Red Bull’s latest struggles to Austria upgrades
The four-time World Champion acknowledged that the conditions did not favour Red Bull’s car, which widened the gap to its rivals even further.
“The conditions for sure are not that good for our car,” he lamented. “For sure, in terms of [the] gap, I think it was very big. Certainly, in qualifying, everything just felt a lot worse.
“Not a lot [of expectations in the race]. The hot conditions don’t help as well, and so far this year we’ve never really been more competitive in the race than qualifying as well, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”
When asked if Red Bull’s updates had contributed to the dip in performance, Verstappen was clear that it wasn’t just that.
“I don’t want to talk about the upgrades because I think it was not only the upgrade that caused all this,” he said.
“It’s just suddenly, we really took a step back, which is not what you want in qualifying.
“We didn’t touch the car [after FP3], just very tiny little changes that shouldn’t influence the car balance.
“I mean that’s all manageable, but suddenly with the higher track temps and more wind, everything just fell apart.”
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