Red Bull sinks
The mood of Max Verstappen is worsening day by day, as he is not only dealing with an F1 that he doesn’t like at all but also with a car – the RB22 – that doesn’t seem remotely capable of allowing him to be as competitive as he would like. Today’s Sprint qualifying in Shanghai was a step backward in terms of performance compared to Australia, where the Dutchman had nonetheless made a good comeback, rising from 20th to sixth during the GP. This time, however, Verstappen did not go beyond the eighth fastest time, suffering a monster gap from George Russell’s Mercedes (+1.734) and finding himself even behind Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.
Over the radio at the end of SQ3, Verstappen vented, somewhere between angry and resigned, complaining about the driving difficulties of his car: “I can’t. This [car] is undriveable. We’ve never had anything this bad,” the four-time world champion stated while speaking with his race engineer Giampiero Lambiase. Shortly after, the team principal of the Milton Keynes-based team, Laurent Mekies, also intervened over the radio, apologizing to Verstappen for the problems his car presented. “Sorry Max. It was tough. There’s a lot to learn. The weekend is still long, we have to learn from it. We’ll try again.” However, there was no reply from Verstappen.
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