Max Verstappen has criticised his Red Bull’s performance in Shanghai, saying he was merely trying to survive each lap.
The four-time world champion expressed his unhappiness with the car in the lead-up to Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix. He dismissed his car on Friday as undriveable, stating, “We have never had anything this bad.”
Verstappen’s Struggles in Qualifying
Verstappen qualified in eighth position. He also finished the sprint out of the points in ninth on Saturday morning.
There had been hope that setup changes would improve performance in qualifying, but Verstappen was left further behind. He ended up a full second slower than Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, who took pole position.
“We change a lot on the car, and it makes zero difference,” Verstappen said. “The whole weekend we’ve been off. The car is completely undriveable. I cannot even put a bit of a reference in. Every lap is like survival.”
Verstappen added, “We turned it upside down and it was exactly the same, so I’m expecting exactly the same tomorrow. In the past, sometimes we would throw it upside down and it would work. Now, nothing works.”
Balance Problems Plague Red Bull
Verstappen had previously made a recovery drive from 20th to sixth in Australia. However, the Red Bull’s shortcomings have been exposed in China.
With the RB22 lacking balance, pushing for a fast lap time proved all but impossible.
“It’s very inconsistent. Whatever lap I do, I am like: ‘All right, well, that is it,’” he added. “Can I go four 10ths faster? Maybe. Can I go four 10ths slower? Yeah, that’s a big chance as well because it’s just all over the place. It’s just incredibly difficult. It’s incredibly tough to drive. There’s no balance, I cannot lean on the car. Every lap is a fight. It’s just very difficult.”
Red Bull’s Engine Development and Team Principal’s Assessment
Red Bull have built their own engines for the first time. While pre-season testing suggested a solid job, the team is not where they want to be during race weekends.
Verstappen’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, finished 15th in the sprint race and ninth in qualifying.
They were outpaced by the Alpine of Pierre Gasly in qualifying, as well as Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren. On Friday, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that the team needed to improve in every area.
“The gap to Ferrari and Mercedes is substantial, it’s probably half in the straight, half in the corner,” he said. “There is not one single area that we need to improve. It’s a 360 improvement. It’s going to be a development race. There is not one single area that we pinpoint in terms of the gap to the competition but it’s going to be a full effort from all departments.”
Lando Norris also noted a performance deficit for his McLaren compared to Mercedes and Ferrari after qualifying in fifth. The British driver said McLaren did not know why they were losing significant amounts of time to the frontrunners.