{"id":313101,"date":"2025-08-02T23:25:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T23:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313101\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T23:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T23:25:15","slug":"red-bulls-lack-of-pace-a-bit-of-a-mystery-admits-max-verstappen-after-hungarian-grand-prix-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313101\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull&#8217;s lack of pace &#8216;a bit of a mystery&#8217; admits Max Verstappen after Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Max Verstappen claims that Red Bull&#8217;s lack of pace ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix is &#8220;a bit of a mystery at the moment&#8221; having registered his worst Qualifying performance of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">The four-time and reigning World Champion will start eighth for Sunday&#8217;s 70-lap race having struggled for grip all weekend at the Hungaroring with Red Bull&#8217;s RB21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\"><a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/max-verstappen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Verstappen<\/a> claimed that although <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/teams\/red-bull-racing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Bull<\/a> usually struggles on Friday before turning it around for Saturday running, that was not the case in Budapest despite only finishing 0.356s behind <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/latest\/article\/leclerc-edges-out-piastri-and-norris-for-shock-pole-position-in-hungary.2Jfzs5jky9IUm16RxCftkn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shock polesitter Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;We didn&#8217;t seem to find it. We tried a lot as a team and unfortunately nothing really helped our balance,&#8221; said Verstappen when asked if there had been a performance increase overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;It&#8217;s really difficult to explain how we suddenly just this weekend have a lot of difficulties with the car. Just no grip on the front, in the rear, difficult to balance it out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a bit of a mystery at the moment. Just the whole weekend off the pace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Team mate <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/yuki-tsunoda\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> also struggled, failing to move beyond Q1 despite only being just over one-tenth slower than Verstappen at the same stage in Qualifying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">The Japanese driver, who will start P16 for the race, also believed that not optimising his running during FP3 played a role in advancing further up the grid when the margins remain so small in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;I think overall this weekend we&#8217;ve struggled as a team,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In that situation, I wanted to maximise performance but we&#8217;re just slow and also FP3 preparation wasn&#8217;t good at all which was in our control completely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;We completely missed that, especially fighting in a tight session like this, all these things count. It can happen like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;[The car] is just sliding around. I think pretty much that&#8217;s it. The grip we should normally get is not there and probably something we are missing completely.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen claims that Red Bull&#8217;s lack of pace ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix is &#8220;a bit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-313101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114961758754311876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}