Max Verstappen rages over ‘undriveable’ Red Bull car after qualifying | F1 | Sport

Max Verstappen came into this Japanese Grand Prix weekend having qualified on pole for each of the last four Suzuka Formula 1 races. But that remarkable streak came to an equally memorable end on Saturday as the Dutchman failed to even make it through to Q3.

He looked on course to just about scrape through to the top 10 despite wrestling a Red Bull car he was clearly uncomfortable driving around the tight and technical Japanese circuit. But his day was suddenly over when Arvid Lindblad, 18 years old and representing Red Bull’s junior outfit Racing Bulls, in just his third F1 race weekend and first at Suzuka, went quicker and condemned the four-time world champion to a Q2 exit.

Speaking to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over the radio, after it was confirmed that he had qualified only 11th, Verstappen fumed: “I think there’s something wrong with the car, mate. It’s completely undriveable suddenly in this qualifying. Jumping on high speed in the rear, suddenly.”

He repeated his “undriveable” claim twice more as he appeared in the media pen to speak to Sky Sports. The Dutchman said: “The car never turns mid-corner. And also again, there’s just so much oversteer on entry, it’s really difficult and unpredictable.

“We thought we had fixed it a little bit in FP3 – there was still a lot of understeer in the car – but in qualifying it was again, for me, undriveable. So that’s something we need to look at. I’m also driving a bit of a different aero package this weekend, but it seems like that’s not working, so that’s also not very good.

“Jumping in the corners. We have problems that I cannot explain in detail here, that we know are there. Sometimes they are a bit worse than other times, and in this qualifying it just came back to a point where it was undriveable.”

In contrast, there was joy for Lindblad who impressed in his F1 debut earlier this month by reaching Q3 at the first attempt in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix and repeated the trick here. “Come on mate, that’s got to be a good one?” he asked over the radio after completing his final Q2 lap and, when it was confirmed to him that he was in the top 10, he cheered: “Come on!”

For the second race weekend in a row, Kimi Antonelli took pole position while his team-mate George Russell was managing a problem on his Mercedes. He still managed to completed another front-row lockout for the Silver Arrows while Oscar Piastri was the one to join them in the top three after a costly mistake made by Charles Leclerc on his final run.

Red Bull were at least represented in Q3 by Isack Hadjar, who ended up eighth quickest to out-qualify Verstappen for the second time in three Grands Prix as the four-time champion’s team-mate. Lindblad may have been delighted to make it through to Q3 but that was as good as his day got as he ended it slowest of the top 10 qualifiers and will start one place ahead of the Dutchman.