After a whole weekend of struggling aboard the RB21, Verstappen's woes piled up and generated a crucial setback to reaching his target of clinching a fifth world title.

During Q1 Verstappen was not comfortable aboard the car, in line with his lack of grip complaints, which he has voiced throughout the weekend.

Coming to the session's end, Verstappen was in P16, and after completing his final psuh lap he was unable to beat Nico Hulknberg's Sauber for the last spot into Q2.

Speaking to Sky Sports, the Dutchman said: “It was just bad. I couldn’t push at all. The car was all over the place, sliding around a lot. I had to under-drive it a lot just to not have a moment. That of course doesn’t work in qualifying.

“We first have to analyse what is going on. I don’t really understand how it can be this bad, so that’s more important for us to understand at the moment," he added.

For Verstappen, Red Bull's performance - or lack thereof - came at a surprise. He continued: "It's not what you want to see. The whole weekend has already been quite tough but this is a bit unexpected I would say, after changing quite a bit on the car."

2But it was just not responding, I had no grip so I had to really under drive it basically. It just didn't work," he concluded.

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