An angry Max Verstappen was left powerless to do anything but complain over team radio as an engine issue ruined his qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Red Bull had already suffered a blow earlier in the session when Sergio Perez was knocked out in Q2. He was hampered on his final flying lap by Kevin Magnussen getting in his way and had to settle for 11th place.
That left Verstappen all on his own to out-do the two Ferraris, but then he suffered a problem of his own. His car suffered power loss right when he needed it with just a few minutes to go, and it was an issue that could not be fixed in time for him to record a good lap.
Powerless to do anything about the problem, he begged his engineers to resolve it for him so he could set a reasonable time. "I have no power. No, for F*** sake. Nothing works. Try to fix this issue," he yelled.
But they were unable to do so and he will start the race from 10th. Despite his hot-headed response over the radio, he was much more determined to look on the bright side when he clambered out of his cockpit to face the media.
"There was a lot of analysing going on to understand what was not really working well for us on Friday, and it's positive that we understood what went wrong and the car was so much better today on a track that doesn't really suit us," he told Sky Sports F1.
"But of course I still would have liked to have started in the top three, and I think we had the pace for it. In Q2 we looked very strong, comfortably, so good turnaround but unfortunately the little glitch we had means we start 10th. It can be tough [to reach the podium] if you're stuck. I hope for not too long, but we just have to stay calm and wait for our moments to go forward."
Perez echoed that message of needing to "come back strong tomorrow" when he spoke with reporters. Meanwhile, team boss Christian Horner looked irritated with how the session had gone as he reflected on one of Red Bull's worst qualifying results in recent memory.
"It's very frustrating to lose Checo in Q2 when he got a bit of traffic at turn two, and then Max felt a lot better about the balance of the car today and I think we were in with a shot of the pole," he said. "But a lock up on the first run into turn two immediately put us on the back foot.
"Still, we felt confident that we could have a crack at it, but then a power unit related issue on his out lap that we were trying to cure and clear... unfortunately it wasn't to be. So no representative time from Max in Q3 and 10th and 11th on the grid, so it's going to be a busy race. Congrats to George Russell on his first pole with a pretty tidy lap."
