Verstappen rules out win, admits Red Bull at a loss with car
Max Verstappen says Red Bull doesn’t understand its struggles in the Singapore Grand Prix and has no chance to win from outside the top 10 with his lack of performance.
Both Red Bull drivers dropped out in Q2 — with Verstappen 11th and Sergio Perez 13th — for the first time in five years, having been complaining about the car’s handling throughout the weekend. Although currently on a run of 10 straight victories and with Red Bull unbeaten this season, Verstappen says he has no chance of extending that streak.
“Yeah, you can forget about that,” Verstappen said. “You can’t pass. On other tracks, you can start last — probably at Spa, you can start last and win the race. But not here. Here you need to be two or three seconds faster to have a chance to pass. That’s just street circuits stuff.
“I want to win, but when it’s not possible, you need to accept that.”
The championship leader admits Red Bull has not got on top of its car in Singapore at any stage, with set-up changes ahead of qualifying not helping the situation.
“I think actually this morning — well FP3 — was better. We made some good progress. It was of course still not where we wanted to be, but it was looking like something. But then we made a few more changes which we thought the setup would allow, the car would allow. But then we got into qualifying…
“The first big problem I had was that I couldn’t brake late and hard, because I would bottom out and it would unload the front tires. On a street circuit, that is something that is very crucial, to be confident on the brakes and attack the corners. So I couldn’t do that, and besides, also just the low-speed corners — where I think we have been struggling the whole weekend — I just had no rear support, so I kept on having mini-slides, or in my final lap, a big one at Turn 3. When it’s like that, there is no lap time.
“Clearly we just don’t understand that issue. Otherwise you don’t make these kind of changes and it’s worse. We are clearly not understanding the car this weekend around this track.
“In general, normally our car is a bit better on deg, maybe to some people around us, but I don’t think that matters a lot in Singapore where it’s very hard to pass. You need to be one and a half, two, three seconds faster, which we are not. Clearly also now with the car performance imbalance we have. It will be a very tough, long afternoon. I still need to speak to the stewards, so I might not even be P11 anyway. At this stage, it doesn’t matter.”
Verstappen is under investigation for three incidents, admitting he simply was trying to keep a gap when leaving the pit lane and then being involved in a chaotic final corner moment with multiple other cars. But it was his impeding of Yuki Tsunoda that he admits was an error that is likely to lead to a penalty.
“Yeah, that was not good,” he conceded. “I didn’t see him, because I was on the radio talking about what was the problem, and then I didn’t get a call-up until he was basically behind me. It basically sums up my qualifying. It was super hectic and messy.”
