Christian Horner says Red Bull "simply doesn't understand" why it qualified so poorly at the Italian Grand Prix, admitting "something clearly isn't working" on its Formula 1 cars.
Verstappen and Perez had looked competitive and on the pace of fellow frontrunners McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari until Saturday afternoon's final qualifying round, in which its three rival teams diced for pole while the pair was a whopping seven tenths off.
Not only have Red Bull's chronic car handling problems persisted, but curiously Verstappen was four tenths slower in Q3 on fresh soft tyres than he was in Q2 on a used set, with Red Bull mystified by where its pace suddenly went.
"We simply don't understand that we did a 1m19.6s on scrubbed tyres and then on two sets of new tyres couldn't do better than 1m20.0s," Horner told Sky Sports F1.
"The balance just isn't there for [Verstappen], so there's something that fundamentally is happening that we're not on top of at the moment. We need to obviously understand it and understand why on the old tyres we are able to do that time, and two sets of new tyres we couldn't get anywhere near it.
"In Q2 it didn't look too bad. I mean, still the handling characteristics that Max has been talking about, but then Q3 there's something amiss. The others can all improve on new tyres, but we were miles away."
Red Bull had conducted set-up experiments at last week's Dutch Grand Prix, with Verstappen and Perez going for different floor configurations to try and get a better idea of where the RB20's balance problems stem from. But one week on, a solution is still out of reach.
"We ran an older specification last weekend to see if that redressed any of the issues at all, and the reality was we still had the same handling characteristics and issues with that specification from the beginning of the year," Horner continued.
"That's given an awful lot of data for the guys, but a lot to get our head around. And we need to address it quickly. We can see the McLarens have made a significant step over the last few races. And we're now behind Ferrari and Mercedes here as well.
"There's something that clearly isn't working on the car, and we're trying to unravel that. First of all, you've got to understand the problem and understand how to address it, and then implement it. There'll be an engineering solution to an engineering problem."
On Sky Germany, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko similarly voiced his "incomprehension" at the Q3 result, which has come at a particularly bad time for the team. Title rival McLaren looks set to take another sizeable bite out of Red Bull's narrowing 30-point constructors' standings lead, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locking out the front row.
"Initially it looked like McLaren's superiority was gone here, and then they showed in the third qualifying session that they are on top after all," he shrugged.
"I think we were second to Hamilton by a few hundredths in Q2 and then suddenly nothing worked in the third qualifying session. The changes were marginal. In theory, they couldn't have caused that. It is puzzling. Normally a used set of tyres is three or four tenths slower."
Red Bull's downturn in performance comes three months after design guru Adrian Newey stepping down from his technical role with the team, with Marko admitting the 65-year-old's input could be useful right now.
"Newey is no longer involved in the whole race [operation], that is a factor," he conceded. "We have a broad base, but perhaps in a situation like this, the routine and the incredible knowledge that he has accumulated over his many years in Formula 1 would help."
