SAO PAULO – Max Verstappen gave a clear assessment of the state of his outside bid for the Formula 1 title after a difficult Saturday in Brazil: “Forget it.”
Verstappen failed to progress past Q1, meaning he will start Sunday’s Grand Prix from 16th on the grid. He had already fallen 39 points behind championship leader Lando Norris after finishing fourth in the race on Saturday morning.
His already slim title hopes appear to be on thin ice.
“You can forget about it, yes, definitely,” Verstappen said when asked about his position now in that battle.
When asked if he meant he had no chance at all now, he said: “Yes… where do we start, so this won’t work, and with this kind of offer I mean forget it.”
Brazil seemed to represent an opportunity for Verstappen to close the gap with McLaren, but he struggled to handle his Red Bull car from the first minutes of the start of the race on Friday.
The four-time world champion’s radio messages revealed a frustrated and angry Verstappen’s struggle to control his car, which several weeks ago looked as if it had become fastest on the grid after victories at Monza, Azerbaijan and Austin, as well as a second place in Singapore.
“There’s definitely something broken and we don’t understand how to fix it right now,” he said.
“We need to understand what our problems were in the first place. Things just weren’t good, and we didn’t seem to really understand why things were the way they were.
He continued: “It seems that nothing is going well. We have changed a lot in the car, but we do not understand that.
“Obviously something isn’t working for us and usually with changes in setup you’d feel some sort of reaction but it doesn’t, so, yeah, something’s really wrong.”
Verstappen claimed a famous victory at Interlagos 12 months ago after qualifying 17th, a result that secured him a fourth world title.
Heavy rain was a factor in his shift on the day, with Verstappen arguably the number one driver in Formula 1 in wet conditions, but that weather is not expected to be on Sunday.
He added: “I don’t know (what is possible), there are a lot of things that we need to correct, overnight, to try something or understand something.”
