Max Verstappen lamented Red Bull’s “undriveable” Formula 1 car as he suggested “every lap is like survival” after qualifying eighth for the Chinese Grand Prix.
Verstappen finished ninth in Saturday morning’s sprint after a disastrous start dropped him down the order like a brick, and will be eighth on the grid after Red Bull was all at sea with its RB22.
The Milton Keynes squad prided itself on its dramatic car set-up turnarounds between practice and qualifying last year, but despite turning the car upside down once more, there were no miracles.
Both in the sprint and in grand prix qualifying, Verstappen suffered the nightmare of every race car driver – a car that both oversteers and understeers and won’t communicate what it will decide to do next.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Lintao Zhang / LAT Images via Getty Images
It left Verstappen nine-tenths off pole in ninth, with team-mate Isack Hadjar another tenth in arrears.
“We changed a lot on the car, and it makes zero difference,” Verstappen explained. “The whole weekend we’ve been off, the car is completely undriveable. I cannot even put a bit of a reference in. Every lap is like survival. The balance is really disconnected.”
When asked where his issues come from, he replied: “A little bit on the engine, but that’s not probably the biggest side. We lose so much with the car at the moment around here. Plus, also I cannot push at all because the car doesn’t let me. So that’s why I don’t really feel in control of the car. It’s just really not how it should be. From lap one of this new regulation I’ve not enjoyed this car, for sure.”
It means Verstappen has little hope of moving up the order, thinking he will finish Sunday’s race “where I’m at”.
Verstappen revealed his start issue was similar to Liam Lawson’s dramatically sluggish getaway in Melbourne, but ruled out any problems charging his battery.
“The battery was fine. But I didn’t get enough power from the engine. I basically had the same problem as what Liam had more or less in Australia. I hope we can fix it. Otherwise I’m P20 again,” the four-time world champion said.
Max Verstappen has not enjoyed the 2026 Red Bull F1 car for one second thus far
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
Red Bull didn’t look as uncompetitive in Melbourne, where Hadjar qualified third and a crash prevented Verstappen from occupying the second row.
But according to Verstappen’s new team-mate, last week’s result was more down to Red Bull’s rivals underperforming than anything to do with Red Bull’s own car performance.
“No, it’s not different,” he said. “I think we were eight-tenths off in Melbourne on a smaller track. Here it’s a lot bigger, which just exposes us a bit more. So, the lap time loss is bigger, but we have the same performance. I think they [Ferrari and McLaren] really messed up last weekend. That’s all I can say.
“We were on the edge of what we have as a package. So we suffer for now, and then we’re going to make progress anyway through the season.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
