Verstappen tears into Red Bull with clear radio message to 'GP'

The Dutchman had been struggling with balance issues all weekend, but things seemed to get worse in qualifying. After Q2, in which he was ultimately eliminated, he reported in on the team radio to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. "I think there is something wrong with the car mate. It's completely undriveable suddenly in this qualifying. Jumping on high speed in the rear suddenly," he said in frustration.

Those problems were also visible on track. Verstappen hovered around tenth place in Q2 and, in the closing stages, fell short of a spot in Q3 after being pushed out of the top ten. As a result, he had to settle for eleventh on the grid, while teammate Isack Hadjar did manage to reach the final part of qualifying, and Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad pushed him out of the top ten.

The radio message to Red Bull Racing is in line with the rest of the weekend, during which Verstappen repeatedly pointed to poor balance and a lack of grip. In free practice, he complained about understeer and a car that was difficult to get into the right operating window.

Afterward, Verstappen said that small improvements had been found in FP3, but that they disappeared again in qualifying. According to him, the car was sliding a lot while also lacking rotation in the corners, resulting in a balance that was difficult to control. He also stated that the problems seem bigger than last year and that certain parts of the car are currently not working as intended.