Verstappen rips into Red Bull: 'Desperate? That word doesn't exist anymore'

Verstappen endured a frustrating qualifying session at the Hungaroring. After already complaining about his car’s balance on Friday, the situation only worsened on Saturday, according to the four-time world champion. He ultimately spun in the final corner of his decisive lap, forcing him to settle for sixth on the grid.

According to Verstappen, the biggest problem is that Red Bull fixes one issue, only for a new fault to pop up right away: "There’s always something else happening. You fix one thing and then something else goes wrong. From FP3 to qualifying, you can see that reflected in the car," Verstappen told GPblog, among others.

The Dutchman then saw the issues continue. Where the balance had already worsened in FP3, it only became more problematic during qualifying, he said. "Yes, it just got worse. At a certain point, the car simply wasn’t drivable anymore."

That eventually led to the spin on his final flying lap. "Like I said, the car just kept getting more oversteery. All the problems got worse. And then you head into that last corner and it just spins again," he continues.

Strikingly, Red Bull had initially expected that the power unit issues would have less impact at the Hungaroring. Verstappen, however, suspects that something else was going on yet again: "Well, we can check that off too then - that there’s something else again," he says cynically.

According to Verstappen, it’s especially frustrating that Red Bull does eventually find the cause, but only after the damage is already done: "In the end, it does get found, but they can’t see it. That’s the problem." As a result, the Dutchman says it’s almost impossible to get the RB22 into the right operating window during a race weekend.

Verstappen also admits that he didn’t have real confidence in the car at any point throughout the weekend. Especially during qualifying, he says there was nothing left to save: "Well, this weekend has been very difficult. Especially in qualifying, it was really nothing at all."

Despite all the setbacks, Verstappen refuses to speak of despair. That stage has even been left behind: "No, not desperate - that word doesn’t exist anymore. We’re past that. So let’s just move on and try again tomorrow."