Max Verstappen's four-word verdict after historic Red Bull embarrassment says it all

Max Verstappen moaned his car was "all over the place" as Red Bull suffered a historically bad qualifying session. The Dutchman failed to progress from Q1 for the first time since the 2021 Russian Grand Prix in a wretched car about which he complained incessantly over the radio throughout his time on track on Saturday.

And 19th-placed team-mate Yuki Tsunoda meant Red Bull saw both cars qualify in the bottom five. That has not happened since the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix when Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, the youngest driver on the current Formula 1 grid, was just six weeks old.

"It was just bad," was Verstappen's succinct assessment. "I couldn't push at all. The car was all over the place, sliding around a lot. I had to underdrive it a lot just to not have a moment, and that, of course, does not work in qualifying."

Asked if he felt he had any chance of recovering to score a good points haul from his starting position of 16th, he added: "We first have to analyse what is going on. I don't really understand how it can be this bad, so that's a bit more important for us to understand at the moment."

Q1 made for grim viewing for team principal Laurent Mekies on the pit wall. While Verstappen's father Jos was caught by TV cameras making a swift exit from the Red Bull garage, once his son's qualifying result was confirmed, the Frenchman stuck around for long enough to give his glum verdict to Sky Sports.

Mekies said: "Obviously, nobody expected something like that. We have been unhappy with the car pretty much since we got here and you heard our struggles through the practice session and Sprint quali and the Sprint. But nonetheless, we were at the point where we could not fight for the win but we could fight with the group just after.

"It's fair to say that we took some risk before qualifying to try to see if we could put the car in a better place, and it obviously went in the opposite direction. So that is where we are now. It's sometimes the price you pay when you take risks. It can't always go your way. It's painful, but it's something that we can learn from and improve."

Lando Norris qualified on pole to cap a perfect day, having also won the Sprint race a few hours earlier. The Brit extended his lead over team-mate Oscar Piastri in the championship to nine points with that success and is now well placed to widen the gap further, with the Australian only fourth on the grid.