Red Bull Racing left the Formula 1 Hungarian GP qualifying session with more questions than answers. Max Verstappen finished only in sixth, a position that became fourth after penalties for Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli, while Isack Hadjar finished eighth, in a weekend marked by unexpected difficulties.
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The performance highlighted the team’s lack of competitiveness compared to Ferrari and McLaren. According to Red Bull members, the problems started to appear from FP3 onwards and prevented the drivers from extracting the maximum from the car at the decisive moment on Saturday.
Verstappen revealed that the team identified aerodynamic losses and unstable behavior at the rear of the car, factors that compromised his performance. The four-time champion highlighted that the car showed excessive oversteer and that the situation did not improve with each lap completed.
“The whole weekend has been complicated for us so far. Unfortunately, from FP3 onwards we started to have problems that were out of our control and were quite unexpected. We observed aerodynamic losses, something especially difficult in a qualifying session, in addition to degradation problems and issues at the rear of the car. There was a lot of oversteer, and with each lap, we couldn’t improve,” he stated.
The Dutchman said the team will work overnight to identify the origin of the problems and seek solutions before the race: “We have a lot to analyze and understand what caused all this. I hope we can correct these problems before the race and see what we can improve starting from sixth position,” he said.
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Hadjar also described a challenging Saturday in Budapest. The driver highlighted that the main difficulty was finding the ideal car balance, which compromised the construction of a competitive lap in Q3. Still, he believes that an efficient strategy could pave the way for a recovery.
“We expected to take a step forward compared to yesterday, but we couldn’t this time. The car’s balance was the main problem here, and finding the sweet spot has been complicated. I’m starting close to Max, so we can work together, and with a good strategy, I hope we can gain some positions,” he added.
Team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that Red Bull simply didn’t have the pace to keep up with Ferrari and McLaren in the qualifying session. According to him, the team worked since Friday to deliver a more balanced car, but did not find enough performance to compete for the top positions. Mekies also highlighted that the race, with forecasts of high temperatures and strong tire degradation, could offer a new opportunity: “We will find out what our race pace will be and if we can get back into contention for a podium spot,” concluded the Red Bull boss.
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