Max Verstappen admitted his lackluster sixth-place qualification in Baku is down to ill-advised setup changes made before qualifying.
Sixth is Verstappen’s second-worst qualifying result of the season, equaling the same result in Monaco and better than only his seventh in Italy two weeks ago. It’s also the first grand prix since Miami last year that Verstappen has been outqualified by teammate Sergio Perez.
A positive practice campaign had many expecting Red Bull Racing to be a protagonist in the battle for pole, but the RB20’s forecast speed never materialized, leaving Verstappen 0.658s off the pace, albeit with Perez 0.21s further up the road. The defending champion said some setup tweaks made for qualifying were to blame for the turnaround, having rendered the car almost undrivable.
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“As soon as I went out in Q1, the first lap, I just felt the car took a step back,” he said. “I was not happy with the car already from lap 1, Q1, so it was going to be a tough qualifying regardless.
“We made some changes. The car became incredibly unpredictable, difficult, just because of the changes that we made. We changed some things around and the car started jumping around a lot and you lose the contact patch with the tarmac.”
Verstappen said he never felt confident enough in the car to chase a more competitive lap time.
“My first run in Q3, I lost it into the last corner; otherwise you’re fighting for P2, P3,” he said. “You still have a run, you can still improve the lap time. I just didn’t have the feeling in the car. I never felt comfortable, as the car was difficult. When you’re not comfortable, you can’t attack corners.”
Despite the poorly judged changes and the underwhelming result, the Dutchman was buoyed by the fact the team at least had made progress with its car since its season-worst performance in Italy.
“We did improve the car,” he said. “I think the balance disconnect [improved]. Naturally, it’s to do with the track of course. We’re still working on fine-tuning that from now on, trying to get the balance disconnect more together.
“But now with the setup, we tried to perfect it, make a few things better, but unfortunately it went the other way. I’m a bit disappointed with that, as you always try to optimize things and make it better. Unfortunately I think we just tipped it over the edge. A shame that happened into qualifying.”
If there’s a silver lining for the title leader, it’s that championship rival Lando Norris qualified a disastrous 17th. The McLaren driver needs to outscore Verstappen by just under eight points per round to pinch the championship in the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Continuing that trend with Verstappen finishing where he starts in sixth would require Norris to recover 15 places to second.
The circumstances therefore allow Verstappen to deal Norris’s fledgling title ambitions a major blow without needing a headline result for himself, although the Dutchman insisted he remained focused on getting the most out of himself rather than on a potential title challenge.
“I still want to do well myself, and today was a bad day,” he said.