Verstappen: A painful Qualifying for us

After qualifying at Red Bull Ring on Saturday, Verstappen told reporters he did not believe he could have challenged for pole position, which was claimed by McLaren's Lando Norris. The Dutch ace lamented the pace that "disappeared" when it mattered in Qualy for Round 11 of the 2025 F1 World Championship.

Verstappen summed up: "It would have been close potentially until the yellow flag, but that's still miles off pole. So that, at the end, is not really that painful. FP3 wasn't too bad but somehow in qualifying it just completely disappeared. There was not a single corner where I felt happy with the car and it was, of course, then a big problem in qualifying."

As for damage limitation from the middle of a viciously close pack, Verstappen said: "It depends how you look at it, right? I don't really look at the standings, I just want to do the best I can in the race weekend.

"Hopefully, tomorrow we can at least be competitive with Ferrari or Mercedes. I don't know even, because with the balance we had in qualy that's for sure not going to look great for tomorrow, but we will analyse everything."

Asked to explain the issues, Verstappen said: "Every corner was a bit of a struggle, to be honest. There was just no balance, no front, no rear, in different parts of the corner, which made it really difficult to get into a rhythm.

"That final lap could have been a bit of a benchmark, but I had to abort because of a yellow flag. Even then, it still wasn’t anywhere close to pole. So yes, it was a pretty painful qualifying for us. [The race] is probably going to be even warmer than today, and it seems like the hotter it gets, the more we struggle in the middle of stints.

"So that doesn't look great. But we’ll see. Maybe there are some surprises in the race," added Verstappen, who is one point shy of a 12-point threshold that triggers an automatic one-race ban.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said of his driver: "Tough and unlucky quali for Max. Gasly spun and Max reacted to the yellow which was the right thing to do but it’s a great shame. That lap was going to be a 4.4 which could have put Max in 3rd or 4th."

In the other Red Bull (the cursed one!) Yuki Tsunoda was doomed to a Q1 exit, six-tenths shy of his teammate's best effort in the same session on the shortest track on the roster, is an eyesore for anyone who believes the Japanese driver is the solution to the number two crisis ay Verstappen's team.

Tsunoda said afterwards: “I am feeling bad, especially because the pace has been good throughout the week and then it was about putting it all together today. So, it is really frustrating that Qualifying has not gone the way I wanted.

"I am tired of it not going the way we want. We need to be able to put it all together and there was too much difference from lap one to lap two. I struggled with the balance quite a lot, it felt very different from my first push to my second.

"Something happened between those runs and we need to figure out what was different about the car, it could have been to do with a flap adjustment between the runs. I know there is something good to come from us, the first push actually felt pretty good"

The Japanese driver added: "It had consistently felt good with the car but I didn’t have that comfortable feeling in the car when it counted, on the last push. The gap to Max was small in Q1 and especially in these tight qualifying sessions we need to work to get the car in a more consistent window, that feels more reliable lap to lap.

"Tomorrow will be difficult, but I will do my best to make it up," concluded Tsunoda in the Red Bull qualifying media report. Notably, both the VCARBs (Red Bull junior team) outqualified Tsunoda. Liam Lawson will start from P6 (best of all the RBR cars!) and Isack Hadjar from P13,

Horner reflected on Tsunoda's session: Yuki had a good first run in Q1 and was strong, he was in the top 10 and lookIng reasonably competitive. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find it and with such fine margins for Q2, he couldn’t make it.

But the Red Bull F1 boss remains optimistic: "This track can throw anything at you, you have to survive turns 1&3, and of course we have seen safety cars play a role here in the past. It’s frustrating for today, but there is plenty of opportunity to bounce back.”