Max Verstappen Laments Over “Undrivable” Red Bull After Humbling Japanese GP Qualifying

Ex-F1 champion Max Verstappen continues his criticism of the Red Bull challenger following the disappointing qualifying run at Suzuka.

Max Verstappen Laments Over “Undrivable” Red Bull After Humbling Japanese GP Qualifying

Max Verstappen (Via @Max33Verstappen/X)

Coming into Suzuka this weekend, four times F1 world champion Max Verstappen had one goal, redeem himself from the tough start to the 2026 season with a solid run in one of his favorite tracks. But the qualifying results from Saturday hints at no possibility of change, as the veteran was eliminated in Q2.

It was the first time ever, the Dutchman has failed to make it into Q3 at the venue and for the first time in 11 years, he was outqualified by his teammate, as Issak Hadjar made it to Q3 and secure P8, while Verstappen scored P11. What’s more ironic was the fact that it was Racing Bull’s Arvid Lindblad that eliminated him. The Red Bull driver was disappointed and distraught about the result.

The car never turns mid-corner. At the same time, this weekend again, just oversteer a lot on entry. It’s really difficult. Unpredictable…We thought we’d fixed it a little bit in FP3, I mean, there’s still a lot of understeer in the car. Now, in qualifying again, for me, it was undriveable. That’s something we need to look at.

Max Verstappen said on his post-qualifying interview.

The car, made under new regulation isn’t suiting the Dutchman’s racing style and the team changing designs every week trying to find a solution is hurting them as well. Max Verstappen admitted that the Red Bull challenger got a lot of issues and asserted that the car is almost undrivable in the qualifying sessions. The two weeks breaks the teams got before Japanese GP hasn’t brought any positive changes to the legendary team.

Also, I’m driving with a different aero package this weekend, yet it seems like that’s not working, so that’s also not very good…We have problems I cannot explain in detail here that we know are there, sometimes a bit worse than other times…In qualifying, it just came back to a point where it was undriveable.

Max Verstappen added, as reported by RN365.

Red Bull insider’s recent admission gives no confident boost to Max Verstappen

Following their disappointing runs in all three Free Practice sessions, Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan talked about the team’s weakness. He pointed our that the team isn’t clearly matching the standards they have set for themselves.

Max Verstappen (via GPFans)
Max Verstappen (via GPFans)

You just have to look at our relative position. It’s not the standards we set ourselves, or those that Max sets us…So, I think we’ve identified a few things that are wrong. Now it’s a case of, can we confirm it, can we understand it well enough that we can influence it, affect it, cure it, whatever for tomorrow — and let’s see how tomorrow goes. But yeah, today was — I’ll describe it as challenging.

Paul Monaghan said.

Though there are many aspects of the car design Red Bull loves, there are few key flows they need to fix immediately to get back to winning form. If they don’t fix those issues, Max Verstappen’s frustration is only going to grow.

Geometrically, it’s quite a big change. So, thank you to everybody in Milton Keynes for getting it here, because that was a mighty effort. Our grasping of all of today’s fun is that’s behaving, but there are some other aspects of the car that are currently not very happy, and those are the ones we’ve got to try and correct for tomorrow, so we will.

Paul Monaghan added.

Going into Sunday’s race, Max Verstappen’s fans need to brace themselves for another disappointment as the Red Bull crew seems too clueless about how to fix the car. It would be interesting to how the team is going perform in the remaining races of the season.

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