Verstappen hurt after missing pole: "It was dramatically bad"

For Max Verstappen, qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix ended in an anticlimax. Where Red Bull Racing was the favourite all weekend, Mercedes suddenly took the front row of the grid. It's no surprise that he's not happy with the result.

How would the Dutchman describe qualifying in one word? "Worthless," says the Red Bull driver in a conversation with Ziggo Sport. "We just had no grip and in the outlap we just didn't generate enough temperature in the tyres."

"The first run was really dramatically bad," he continued. "The second run was slightly better and in that I could have fought for pole, but I have no idea what suddenly happened to Yuki and Checo in front of me. I'll have to look back and see why they both suddenly went off the track."

Tsunoda reportedly pulled over to make way for the Red Bull drivers. "Yes, but that's really the stupidest place to do that," Verstappen responded. "Because you arrive there with quite a lot of speed I thought someone had gone off, so I automatically went off the gas because there was all this dust coming up."

"Then you lose two tenths and then I was only one-tenth under instead of three. Then you know it's finished, you try to force something in the last sector but that doesn't help either. It was really dramatically bad in Q3," concludes Verstappen.