Max Verstappen has problem he's never experienced in F1 before amid Red Bull woes
Max Verstappen was only seventh quickest in Italian Grand Prix qualifying as he struggled with his Red Bull car, while Lando Norris and McLaren are piling on the pressure
Max Verstappen said he has never before experienced the shifts in performance he felt during qualifying at Monza in his entire Formula 1 career.
It was a disastrous session for the Dutchman who could only find the pace in Q3 to secure the seventh slot on the grid. It was his worst qualifying result since the 2023 Miami Grand Prix - 32 races and 16 months ago.
To make matters worse, Verstappen 's nearest challenger in the drivers' championship is on pole. Lando Norris is in the strongest form of his F1 career and McLaren have given both him and Oscar Piastri cars in which they are capable of challenging on a weekly basis.
Verstappen's result was made all the more baffling by the time he had produced in the second half of the session. His best lap in Q2 was four-tenths of a second quicker than his final effort, and he later explained that the balance of his Red Bull car had felt so much worse in that final part of qualifying.
He said: "For whatever reason in Q3 I picked up a lot of understeer on both tyre sets and this is something that I don't understand at the moment. It was just not drivable anymore. I couldn't attack any corner, so that's something that is very weird.
"I mean, going four tenths slower than what you did in Q2 is not normal. The balance difference that I had in Q3 was very weird. I've never experienced something like that before."
Team-mate Sergio Perez was closer to Verstappen than usual, because of the Dutchman's struggles, though he was still slower than his team-mate and lines up alongside him on the fourth row in eighth place. He felt Red Bull's decision not to bring a specific rear wing to Monza may have been an error.
The Mexican said: "This connection in the balance that we're currently facing is the main issue. We can get some competitive laps at times, but it's very difficult to have any progression. I think not having a Monza wing as well has hurt us, probably more than we thought in the beginning.
"You have two different balances; one from corner entry and one through the apex, so you cannot fix it. You cannot go in one direction because you have both. I think we understand the issue. It's just how to fix it. Because at the moment we are pretty stuck and it's really hard to move forward from here."
Team principal Christian Horner admitted the urgency of the problem with rivals McLaren bearing down on Red Bull in the constructors' championship. He said: "There's a lot to do. There's something that clearly isn't working on the car. We're trying to unravel that."
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