Max Verstappen needed few words afterwards to describe his qualifying for the Hungarian GP. “The whole weekend has been difficult, but especially this qualifying was absolutely nothing.” The reason: another new, still unknown problem in the Red Bull car.
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The Dutchman ultimately finished sixth (update: due to penalties for Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli, he starts fourth) and never came close to pole position. He was hardly surprised afterwards, as the team had already informed him that there were problems. “I was told something was wrong, they could see the aerodynamics were getting worse. That’s not what you want, of course. Then you can’t set a wing and the car is no longer well balanced.”
Verstappen also noticed that on track, according to him. “It was peculiar, it kept getting worse, more and more oversteer.”
That also became apparent in the second run in Q3. “Then you approach the last corner and you spin,” he recalled the slide in the final phase of qualifying. Not that it mattered much, because an improvement of the lap was not in it. And Verstappen also has other concerns. “I can hardly make anything of it at the moment, because I myself don’t know what the problem was.”
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Verstappen is beyond despair
New issues then. While friends and foes still thought that Red Bull might perform very well on the less energy-consuming circuit in Hungary. “But we can cross that off too,” said Verstappen.
There was no sign of anger or steam coming out of his ears. And despair? In a calm tone: “No, I don’t even know that word anymore.” And what now? “Well, tomorrow we’ll just try again,” he said with even a smile. Because Verstappen also knows that he has little choice but to make the best of it in the race.
And off went the four-time world champion, on his way to a much-needed ‘debrief’ with the team. Hopefully for the Dutchman and for Red Bull, an answer will come to the questions surrounding the new problems, still unclear on Saturday evening. From P6 in Budapest, it will then become clear on Sunday what is possible in the final race before the summer break.
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Read everything about the Hungarian GP here
