Max Verstappen was left virtually speechless after a torrid Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix Sprint Race for Red Bull, which saw the Dutchman deliver a blunt summary of the team’s current state of affairs.
The Milton Keynes-based squad’s drivers lined up a mediocre eighth and 10th at the Shanghai International Circuit, with things going bad to worse as soon as the lights went green.
Verstappen’s car failed to sufficiently get off the line, bogging down and leaving him swamped by the midfield cars going into Turn 1.
Isack Hadjar was punted by Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes, which also got a dreadful getaway, dropping him from second on the grid and into the lower-paying points places.
The RB22 was competitive enough to see Verstappen climb from 20th to sixth in Melbourne, but no such repeat performance was forthcoming.
Verstappen had complained after qualifying on Friday that the car was handling poorly, and a continuation of this issue, as well as tyre degradation, held the Dutchman back.
Despite being able to climb back up to ninth, Verstappen was left unhappy with the current position the car is currently in, admitting the team were not “well prepared” for some of the car’s issues.
“I have not a lot of words at the moment, to be honest. Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” told Sky F1.
“So yeah, the start is, of course, one problem that we have to fix. But after that, the balance is all over the place.
“Probably the highest degradation of everyone out there, which is just uncontrollable, and some other bits on the car that we’re not, I would say, well prepared for.
“So yeah, we just need to get our stuff together.”
Unless the Red Bull crew can muster a better balance for Verstappen and for Hadjar, then both men might be set for a painful remainder of the weekend.
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