Christian Horner could not mask his frustration as he spoke bluntly about Sergio Perez's later qualifying shocker.
The Mexican failed to reach Q3 in his previous three qualifying attempts. So he would have been desperate for a strong starting position this weekend to get his season back on track.
But it was not to be for Perez, who will start the Austrian Grand Prix from 15th. He had the pace in his ultra-fast Red Bull, but had all three of his flying laps in Q2 deleted for track limits violations.
And that left Horner visibly annoyed as he spoke to Sky Sports after the session. "He's got the pace today and had a car that was easily capable of being on the first or second row," said the team principal.
"He was matching Max's times... stay in the white lines! Strike one, strike two, 'Checo, just stay in the white lines'. Then strike three and he was out. So it's hugely frustrating because he could have been there and he could have done it."
Max Verstappen made his boss much happier by taking pole position for the race. Although Horner said that was "fantastic", it was clear that Perez's struggles had left a sour taste in his mouth.
Sky's Damon Hill pointed out that Verstappen had two laps deleted for track limits violations himself. But, as Horner pointed out in response, the Dutchman's reaction was to bear it in mind and make sure he got a time on the board afterwards.
Horner added: "At least [Verstappen] responded. We said, 'Stay in the white lines,' and he did that. He built a conservatism into his laps to make sure that he had a wheel inside the line and I think there was more time in the car in that last sector if he hadn't gone for it. He was driving with a bit of restraint.
"It's frustrating because we know [Perez] can do it. He was three-hundredths off Max – he could have been four-tenths slower and still would have been in [Q3]. Q2, that's not the time to be [taking risks]."
After the session, Perez said he had gone outside the white lines on his final run because he took evasive action to avoid the slow-moving Alex Albon ahead of him.
In response, Horner simply said: "It's not going to have helped, but you build in a little bit more margin. Checo... frustrated, we'll turn the page and he'll race had tomorrow, but it's just annoyed me because we know he could have been there."
Perez also took aim at the stewards for not taking the Albon incident into account before deleting the lap. "I couldn't stop and I think I lost a tenth, or a bit more than that, just by going straight. But the stewards wouldn't consider that I was blocked," he complained.
"There are so many things I can't control and, unfortunately, this one... you're closing a good lap and then all of a sudden you're blocked and you have a penalty. I think the system is wrong.
"We will try [to recover in the race]. It's just frustrating that we don't have a good system and we are not able to consider when these things happen."
