Max Verstappen has offered an insight into the extent of the difficulties he faced behind the wheel during sprint qualifying in Canada.
The four-time champion was heard voicing his frustrations over team radio as he struggled with the rear-end balance of his RB22 throughout the session.
Verstappen appeared at risk of missing out on a place in the top-10 shootout, but narrowly progressed through SQ2 before securing fifth place on the grid for Saturday’s sprint.
However, the Dutchman admitted he was far from satisfied with the balance of the car and urged Red Bull to identify a solution to improve his confidence behind the wheel.
“I’m not surprised, just my feeling in the car was not very good,” Verstappen said.
“I was struggling a lot with just the ride of the car, so all over the bumps, I couldn’t put my foot down.
“Actually, my feet were even flying off the pedals, just made it very difficult to be consistent and that’s something that we need to investigate.”
F1 teams are unable to make setup changes to their cars before the sprint race without breaching parc fermé regulations, meaning Verstappen is likely to remain dissatisfied with the balance of his RB22 until modifications are permitted after the shorter contest.
Verstappen has voiced his hope that his qualifying-spec car will be friendlier to drive.
“It was not great,” Verstappen added.
“We were stuck with that for the sprint but [there are] some other things to understand, and hopefully that will then be a bit better for quali.”
