Max Verstappen expressed complete bewilderment with his Red Bull’s performance after managing only sixth place in Canadian Grand Prix qualifying, telling his team over radio that “something’s fucked up” with his car’s handling. The three-time world champion finished more than three-tenths behind pole-sitter George Russell and was outpaced by teammate Isack Hadjar through both Q1 and Q2 sessions before narrowly edging him by just 0.028 seconds for the final grid position.
The Dutchman’s frustration was evident during his radio communications with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, where he complained: “There’s something fucked. Like this is impossible. It’s impossible. What the fuck’s going on here?” Following the session, Verstappen maintained his confusion, telling Sky Sports: “I don’t know. That’s the honest answer. I have no idea what’s going on. Everything is so confusing and the set-up change that we made I also didn’t like. It was very difficult.”
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies acknowledged the team’s struggles and apologized to Verstappen over team radio, stating: “Sorry Max, we know it’s a frustrating one, but we’ll have a look to answer it. It’s a painful but necessary data point and we’ll look into it.” Mekies later revealed that the team had experimented with different tire preparation strategies during qualifying, which may have contributed to the balance problems.
According to Mekies, Red Bull had particular difficulty getting the front tires to perform optimally over a single lap at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The team resorted to build laps during qualifying – a strategy they hadn’t used earlier in the weekend. While this approach showed promise with Hadjar’s car, it failed to deliver the expected results for Verstappen, prompting the team to revert to a push-cool-push sequence for his final qualifying attempt.