Max Verstappen says he knew Red Bull might be the least competitive in Hungary’s Grand Prix, but he didn’t expect it to be as hard as it would have after the eighth qualifying.
The Dutch won a sprint race in Belgium last weekend, but have not finished on the podium in any of the last three Grand Grand Prixes. The top six in qualifying was covered by just 0.126, but Verstappen actually saw a top 10 start as a positive result with 0.356S Adrift at 0.8/0.
“Looking at the whole weekend, I’m happy to be in the third quarter. “We didn’t have any front and back grips on the weekend, but it was the same in the qualifying round. That’s not a real shock. I’m just already feeling the whole weekend.
“There were no one lap or one corner that I felt good about. So far we had been sliding the weekend… there was no grip. We knew it wasn’t the strongest weekend for us here, but I didn’t know this was difficult.”
Verstappen admitted that Red Bull struggled with the Budapest McLaren a year ago, but says the biggest challenge is how this year’s cars aren’t responding to the changes the team has made.
“I think we’re still very close to Paul (last season) like within a few hundredths of it,” he explained. “There was always been a lot of competition at the time. I just felt this weekend, already a lap before.
“Of course, that’s the biggest problem. If you make a big change from the setup, you always get positives and negatives, and (nothing went well).
Verstappen doesn’t think there will be a significant amount of advancement in Sunday’s race, given the pace he’s shown so far.