Max Verstappen looked like a serious threat to George Russell's pole bid at the start of qualifying on Friday in Baku. But the Dutchman was ultimately left wondering how a session that had promised so much had unravelled so completely.
After topping FP3, the Red Bull driver could manage only eighth on the grid, a staggering 1.5 seconds away from Russell's benchmark. And while a yellow flag on his final flying lap played a part, Verstappen made clear that his troubles ran much deeper.
The four-time world champion described his entire Q3 as “a disaster”, pointing to a chain reaction of problems that had left his Red Bull compromised long before the yellow flags appeared.
One problem after another
Verstappen's biggest complaint was a lack of straight-line performance. He said the deficit was enormous even compared with his own team-mate, with the Red Bull's power unit failing to deliver when it mattered.
“I mean, that was the last thing that happened,” he told Sky F1, referring to the session’s late yellow flags.
“The whole qualifying, I was just lacking top speed, like half a second in just top speed compared to my team-mate. The engine was just not working. So, that’s one problem.
“Then, in Q3, in the build lap my battery didn’t charge, so then you start the lap with half a battery.
“So, then you abort, you lose temperature because you don’t have enough power. Then it snowballs into the final lap.
“Yeah, I started the lap, but again the top speed, a yellow flag in my lap, not enough tyre temperature, and that’s where you are.”
It was a particularly painful outcome given what had gone before. Verstappen had looked strong throughout the weekend and had topped the final practice session, while Red Bull appeared capable of challenging Mercedes for the front row.
Instead, every layer of difficulty seemed to arrive at precisely the wrong moment.
The yellow flags caused by Lando Norris' off-track moment ultimately denied Verstappen a clean final attempt, but by then the foundations of his qualifying challenge had already been badly shaken.
From pole threat to eighth
The scale of Verstappen's disappointment was underlined by the fact that he qualified four places behind Isack Hadjar, who secured an impressive fourth on his return from a hand injury.
Verstappen's prospects for Sunday's race are therefore considerably less certain than they appeared after FP3. Asked whether he could still fight his way into podium contention from eighth, the Red Bull driver could offer no confident prediction.
“I have no idea,” he said . “We were in a really good place the whole weekend, and then we had a disaster in qualifying because we had a lot of issues. So, let’s see what we can do.”
Verstappen has won in Baku twice, including last year's race, and the underlying pace of his Red Bull has offered reasons for optimism despite Friday's collapse.
But the bouncing that has plagued the car throughout the weekend remains another complication, with Verstappen previously likening its behaviour to a car “jumping like a kangaroo”.
From topping FP3 to qualifying eighth, the transformation was brutal. Verstappen's challenge now is to turn a qualifying disaster into a Sunday recovery.
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