Max Verstappen brands ‘whole day a disaster’ after China sprint quali

Max Verstappen labelled Friday a ‘disaster’ after a shock eighth-place qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint.

The Dutchman was close to two seconds off pole sitter George Russell in what was a miserable showing for Red Bull with Isack Hadjar down in 10th.

Max Verstappen reflects on ‘disaster’ in China

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After crashing out in Q1 in Australia, reaching Q3 in China was at least a positive for Verstappen but that is where the positives end with the Red Bull well off the pace of the title challengers.

Speaking about his session, Verstappen described the whole of Friday as a “disaster” and suggested his cornering was the issue.

“The whole day has been a disaster pace wise,” he said. “So no grip. Honestly, I think that’s the biggest problem. No grip, no balance, just losing massive amounts of time in the corners, to be honest.

“And then, of course, because of that, you start triggering other little problems but the big problem for us is just the cornering is completely out.”

Hadjar spoke in similar terms, suggesting Red Bull need a “bit more of everything” if it has any hopes of competing towards the top of the time sheets.

“I don’t know what happened yet and why we lost half a second, but happy with my lap,” he said. “It was good but in the end, it doesn’t change. I don’t think that is going to change our weekend. So I’m just happy to be not too far from Max.

“We need a bit more of everything. More grip, more power, maybe. It was just very far off Mercedes, a lot more than we were last weekend.

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“I was expecting the McLaren and the Ferrari to be ahead, but I didn’t expect the gap overall to increase.”

Speaking prior to the session, team principal Laurent Mekies suggested the power unit was the area it had most to learn in.

“Seriously, many, many learnings,” he said when asked what Australia had taught the team. “Obviously, I think if we want to think what have been the biggest aspects for us, it’s probably the power unit, being so new in the adventure.

“But it’s fair to say that the learnings were 360 through the weekend. You have seen through qualifying sessions how much every driver and car were adapting.

“In the race, how much we were all learning about how to deal with our energy.

“So, I would say, to answer your question, first the power unit, on our side, in real-life race trim. Second, probably how we all learned to deal with energy management around the lap throughout the race weekend.”

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