‘It just didn’t work’ – Verstappen reflects on ‘unexpected’ Q1 exit in Sao Paulo

In a Qualifying session full of talking points, Max Verstappen’s early exit in Q1 was one of the biggest shocks around Interlagos, with the Red Bull driver labelling it another sign of a “tough weekend” as he prepares to line up 16th.

The Dutchman, who had been over 100 points adrift of the championship lead at one stage, had experienced a resurgence in recent rounds and arrived in Sao Paulo just 36 points behind Lando Norris.

However, a lacklustre Sprint saw him go from sixth to fourth position, where he was unable to find a way past the Mercedes of George Russell. He reported issues with the car bouncing excessively, giving the team plenty to do in the few hours before Qualifying began.

In Q1, Verstappen confirmed that the ride was smoother but the changes meant that the car was now sliding around a lot more, giving him no grip around the circuit. He was unable to get on top of the problem before the clock ticked down, leaving him frustrated and down in P16.

“It’s not what you want to see,” he said after the session. “The whole weekend has already been quite tough but this is a bit unexpected, I would say, after changing quite a bit on the car.

“It was just not responding. I had no grip out there so I had to really massively underdrive it basically. It just didn’t work.”

In one of the highlights of last season, Verstappen drove from P17 to victory in Sao Paulo amid heavy rainfall, but an equally dramatic downpour would seemingly have to occur for him to have any chance of replicating the feat in Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Asked whether he and the team were tempted to change the power unit ahead of the race, he answered: “Not necessarily, but we’ll look at all of that tonight.”

The result was one of Red Bull's exceedingly rare double Q1 exits as Yuki Tsunoda found himself the last of the runners in 19th place, with Kick Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto unable to take part in the session following his heavy Sprint crash.