The world champion put himself at the top of the timesheets after the first run in Q3 but failed to improve on the critical final effort as Hamilton beat him to the top spot on the grid by just 0.003 seconds.
Reflecting on why he had not kept up his run of pole positions that stretched back to the Monaco Grand Prix, Verstappen blamed a lack of good balance throughout qualifying.
“I have been struggling the whole weekend to find a good balance,” explained the Dutchman. “Every session has been up and down.
“Today also in qualifying it was really difficult in Q1/Q2 to just feel confident, to really attack corners.
“I thought my first run in Q3 was quite good. But then the second run again, no feeling.
“I tried to push a little bit more, but you lose the rear, or lose the front. We are still second, but I think we should be ahead with the car we have normally. But so far I think we haven't been on it.”
Red Bull introduced a major upgrade to its RB19 this weekend, which included new sidepods and revisions to the floor, but Verstappen did not think that had been a factor in what happened on Saturday.
“I think the update works, but I think we just didn't really put everything together set-up wise,” he said.
“I think today we have been all over the shop and not exactly where we want it to be.”
Although he had to give second best to Hamilton in qualifying, Verstappen is more optimistic about how his car will handle in the race.
“It's going to be quite hot and normally rear tyres are going to be difficult, but I think for the race everything settles down a bit more,” he explained.
“I would have just hoped to have a little bit more of a fun balance in qualifying to really attack it.”
