Red Bull driver Max Verstappen says his car was “immediately gone” as he suffered a costly accident in Formula 1 qualifying ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix.
In the dying seconds of the lap, Verstappen put everything on the line to keep up with the intrinsically quicker Mercedes cars and looked on course to contend for the front row behind poleman George Russell. However, he lost the rear of his Red Bull RB22 in Turn 9, spinning into the barriers.
Verstappen said it was the first time over the Spielberg weekend that he had faced an issue in Turn 9, although his car was getting loose in Turn 6 as well earlier in the lap.
“That lap, already in Turn 6 I had a very weird snap on entry, because that’s basically the second highest speed [corner]. And then when I went into Turn 9, as soon as I turned the wheel I was gone,” he explained.
“It felt like a bit of a lack of some downforce or oversteer. I didn’t even change anything on the car. There is margin in places, so you try to push a little bit more, but at the same time also not a stupid amount more. But as soon as I turned the wheel it just completely went away.”
Verstappen felt the crash cost him two positions on the starting grid, but given Red Bull’s well documented start issues he was expecting to drop back on Sunday anyway.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images
“I think realistically we could have been P3, it’s a little bit better than P5,” the Dutchman told Sky. “But realistically, I think even if we would have been P3, coming off the line is hard for us, so you probably drop back to P5, but that’s what it is at the moment.”
Red Bull had rolled out a huge upgrade package at its parent company’s home circuit in Austria, which appears to have delivered a meaningful step for the team. But, Verstappen is reserving judgement until the team can get a bigger sample size at a circuit like Silverstone next week.
“I think we have to wait,” he said. “This track is a very short lap, right? Actually, a lot of people were close. I think there’s still a few things that we want to understand from the package that worked well, maybe some bits not so well, and then we’ll just work from there.”
Team-mate Isack Hadjar qualified eighth, a tenth and a half behind Verstappen and half a second behind polesitter Russell, after struggling with front locking into Turns 1 and 3.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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