Red Bull’s “disaster” on Friday: how Max Verstappen lost 1.7s to Mercedes

Verstappen branded his Friday a “disaster” after he was outqualified by an Alpine for the Shanghai sprint

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen says his Friday has been a “disaster” at the Chinese Grand Prix, having qualified down in eighth for the Shanghai sprint race.

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The four-time world champion was already eighth in the only free practice session of the weekend, no less than 1.8s off the pace compared to George Russell’s dominant Mercedes.

In sprint qualifying, Verstappen complained about his RB22’s horrendous driveability; he was 11th in SQ1, improving to ninth and eighth in the next two segments despite an off in the last corner in SQ2.

Although the Dutchman’s position improved, his deficit to Russell increased from 1.140s in SQ1 to 1.734s in SQ3. Team-mate Isack Hadjar was a further half a second adrift in 10th.

“The whole day has been a disaster, pace-wise,” Verstappen lamented on F1 TV. “Yeah, no grip. Honestly, I think that’s the biggest problem – no grip, no balance, just losing massive amounts of time in the corners, to be honest. Then, of course, because of that, you start to trigger other little problems. But the big problem for us is just the cornering is completely out.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Asked if he could try something different and aggressive with the set-up for the main qualifying and race, Verstappen succinctly replied: “We’ll have a look. I don’t know at the moment what we can do. We’ll see.”

The Red Bull driver had come to China, where he won in 2024, with little hope for a standout result.

Asked if he thought he was going to be closer to the other top teams at Shanghai in Thursday’s press conference, Verstappen replied: “Impossible to know. I mean, honestly, it’s such a jungle out there at the moment. I think that it’s very hard to really know. I mean, I would hope that it gets a bit closer, not even bigger than the gap that it was in Melbourne, but it’s clear that at the moment we cannot fight with those cars.”