Max Verstappen & Red Bull Racing were at odds over the RB22 setup in Canadian Grand Prix

Verstappen was never happy with his RB22 in Canada, as the ride quality was an issue as well as the front-end grip, which wasn't as per the four-time Formula 1 Champion's preference.

While Verstappen was hoping that setup changes between the Sprint Race—he was seventh—and Qualifying would transform his car.

But it seemed that was not the case, as the team apparently didn't listen to Verstappen's feedback, as he ultimately qualified sixth.

Verstappen told Dutch media in Montreal: “A lot of things from this qualifying session are very difficult to understand. For example, I have no idea where that final lap suddenly came from. Throughout the session I had very little top speed and simply no grip.

“I didn’t get any information from the team either, so it was clear that we couldn’t solve it during the session,” the winner of 71 Grands Prix added. “We did something different with my car; that’s what the team wanted.

"Clearly, that doesn’t work the way it should. But sometimes you also have to let the team do their thing and make clear that it doesn’t work.

"I said, ‘Go ahead, if you think this is going to work, then do it.’ And clearly, it doesn’t work," he maintained.

Asked why Red Bull Racing didn't listen to him, Verstappen said: “I’ve pointed it out so many times already, but sometimes you just have to let them feel for themselves that it doesn’t work.

“Of course they listen to me very often, but not this time, because they were convinced that it was going to work," he concluded.

Red Bull Racing Team Principal and CEO Laurent Mekies defended the team's approach following Verstappen's commented, he said: “We take risks every time we don't feel that we are at the right balance or at the right gap to the competition. And when you take risks like that, you do explore set-up directions.

“It's only the beginning of the year, and it’s the beginning with this generation of cars. We are going to try things with our drivers to unlock something, even if it's costing us something," the Frenchman added. "And then you learn.

"You learn for the qualifying condition and you learn for the race condition. There has been a lot of learning this weekend. How far were we from the ultimate potential of the car? Nobody really knows.”

But Mekies insisted both Verstappen and Isack Hadjar are involved in such decisions. He claimed: "As much as it may have felt different, the reality is that our drivers are completely integrated in the choices we make.

“It doesn't mean that we don't have our own little games at saying, 'What do you think and what do you think?'. But, at the end of the day, we agree on what to try. And then sometimes there is a bit of, ‘I told you’.

“If you take risks, you will get the pain," Mekies reiterated. "And it's to get these sort of drivers' feelings, to get our drivers pushing us to say, 'Look, it may be only four or five tenths to the best cars, but it felt like it could be much better.'

"It's only an invitation for us to keep taking risks and keep exploring," the Red Bull Racing boss concluded. (Additional reporting by Agnes Carlier)