Max Verstappen described his Friday at the Chinese Grand Prix as a “disaster” with Red Bull lacking in performance compared to frontrunners Mercedes.
Verstappen, who has voiced his dissatisfaction with this new generation of F1 car and has not ruled out quitting the sport as a result, struggled throughout practice and sprint qualifying in Shanghai.
The four-time F1 world champion could only qualify eighth on the grid for Saturday’s 19-lap dash – with his best time in SQ3 an astonishing 1.734 seconds behind pole-sitter George Russell’s pole-setting lap.
Complaining throughout the day about several issues, including driveability, cornering speeds and all-out power, Verstappen was downbeat afterwards. So much so, in fact, that Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies offered an apology to his star driver over team radio after sprint qualifying.
“Sorry Max, tough one,” Mekies said. “A lot to learn, the weekend is still long. We need to learn from today, let's try again.”
Asked about his day as a whole in the media pen, Verstappen replied: “The whole day has been a disaster pace-wise.
“There’s been no grip, no balance, we’re losing massive amounts of time in the corners and because of that, you trigger other problems.
“The big problem is the cornering is… completely out.”
Red Bull looked competitive in pre-season testing but are short on pure pace compared to Mercedes, with Russell leading home another one-two finish on Friday with Kimi Antonelli in second.
Reigning world champion Lando Norris qualified third for McLaren – but still 0.621 seconds off Russell – with Lewis Hamilton in fourth for Ferrari.
Isack Hadjar, Verstappen’s new teammate for 2026, could only qualify 10th and was more than two seconds slower than Russell in the final phase of qualifying.
The sprint race takes place at 3am GMT on Saturday, with grand prix qualifying at 7am.
