Max Verstappen left reeling after shock Hungarian qualifying blow

Max Verstappen wasn’t expecting his Red Bull Racing machine to be quick in Hungary, but he wasn’t expecting things to be this difficult.

The reigning World Champion qualified only eighth fastest after which he opined that the team has been going backwards. Even worse, it’s not sure where to go next.

Max Verstappen laments unexpectedly poor Hungarian Grand Prix

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

If polesitter Charles Leclerc was left exclaiming, “Today is a day where I don’t understand anything anymore about motorsport!” after qualifying, Max Verstappen was echoing that same sentiment for dramatically different reasons.

While the Ferrari driver was pleased to find that he could set the pace in the final stage of qualifying, Verstappen was left wondering where the RB21 went wrong.

His Red Bull has looked off the pace throughout the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend: Verstappen was ninth, 14th, and 12th in Free Practices 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Simply making it through to the final round of qualifying was admittedly positive; however, the reigning champion was shocked by the performance of his machinery.

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“I mean, looking at the whole weekend, I think we are happy to be in Q3 because I’ve been more outside of the top 10 than in,” Verstappen told media, including PlanetF1.com, after qualifying.

“It’s been difficult this whole weekend. No grip, front and rear, and it was the same in qualifying.

“So for me, it was not really a shock. I just drove to what I already feel the whole weekend.”

While the end result may have been somewhat comforting, Verstappen pinpointed a critical issue being faced by the team: Namely, that it has absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Asked if the team understood why the RB21 has struggled in Hungary, Verstappen replied, “No, clearly not. I mean otherwise, we would have changed it already.

“But somehow this weekend, nothing seems to work.”

Though he wasn’t perfect at Hungary in 2024, Verstappen noted that “we were a lot more competitive back then,” in dramatic comparison to this weekend.

“Already from Lap 1, it just fell off, and we threw the car around a lot, and nothing really gave a direction,” he explained of the team’s approach to the weekend.

“And that, of course, is the biggest problem, because normally when you use or you change a lot in the set-up it will always give you positives or negatives — and nothing works.

“It’s like just going around in circles and nothing give you any kind of idea of what to do.”

That confusion was likely exacerbated by a change in conditions for Q3. Track temperatures dropped and gusts of wind swept over the circuit in a new direction as rain clouds threatened. The session finished in dry conditions, but such was the change that McLaren lost 0.5s from Q2 to Q3.

A more predictable Q3, though, may not have helped much.

“There’s not been a single lap or a single corner that I felt good,” Verstappen explained.

“The whole weekend so far has just been sliding.”

This prompted PlanetF1.com to ask one critical question: Was he expecting to struggle this much in Hungary?

“No,” Verstappen replied. “Not like this.

“I never thought it would be the strongest weekend for us here, but I think no one expected [this].”

The reigning champion wouldn’t go so far as to say that this has been his worst weekend — he pointed to “quite a few Singapore disasters” as taking that crown — but the sheer difficulty likely puts this event right up there.

When it comes to the race itself, Verstappen was pessimistic of his chances of turning his eighth-place starting position into a strong finish.

“I mean, there may be a car, three cars, in front of me that I can maybe battle with a little bit,” he said, referring to the Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll as well as the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto.

“But of course Lewis [Hamilton] is still a bit further down the road, which I think he shouldn’t be there, right? So he will come through a bit.”

Whatever happens, it’s sure to be a difficult Sunday for Max Verstappen.

Read next: Hungarian GP: Charles Leclerc stuns McLaren to snatch pole