Max Verstappen slammed his Red Bull team at the 2023 Hungarian GP after he qualified second behind old rival Lewis Hamilton, breaking a five-race streak of Formula 1 pole positions.
Verstappen was top heading into the Q3 finale but was unable to improve on his final flying lap leaving the door open to Lewis Hamilton, who duly pulled out a classic lap to beat the Dutchman by 0.003s and take a record-breaking ninth pole at the Hungaroring.
However, Verstappen hadn’t topped any free practice or qualifying sessions ahead of Q3 either – an oddity in 2023 – despite Red Bull bringing upgrades to the Hungarian GP.
“I think the update works but I think we didn’t really put everything together setup-wise,” Verstappen said immediately after qualifying. “Because I think today we’ve just been all over the shop and not exactly where we wanted to be.
“I’ve been struggling the whole weekend to find a good balance it’s been very up and down, today in qualifying it was really difficult in Q1, Q2 to attack corners.
“I thought my first one in Q3 was quite good but my second run again no feeling, tried to push a little more, you lose the rear, lose the front. So we’re still second but I think we should be ahead with the car we have normally, so far this weekend we haven’t been on it.”
Verstappen outlines expectations for Hungarian GP
Verstappen won the 2022 Hungarian GP from tenth on the grid – when Mercedes‘ George Russell was on pole – so it’s not all doom and gloom.
However, from third in 2021 he was hit by Valtteri Bottas at the first corner and hobbled to ninth in a stricken Red Bull – starting on the inside of the Hungaroring is typically tough.
And Verstappen was asked where he wanted to adjust his Red Bull ahead of the race.
“Depends on the temperature, it’s going to be quite hot so normally the rear tyres are quite difficult,” Verstappen said. “I think for the race everything settles down but I would’ve loved to have a little bit more of a fun balance in qualifying to really attack it.”
