Max Verstappen: The car was uncontrollable in the final

Max Verstappen only set the seventh fastest time in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. The current world champion explained this result by understeer.

His team-mate Sergio Perez lost time on the final flying lap, hit the gravel at the exit of the Lesmo 2 corner and returned to the pits in eighth place.

Max Verstappen (7th): “The car is very difficult to drive and we couldn’t find the right balance. When you have one problem and you try to solve it, another one arises.

Let’s say the car wasn’t always uncontrollable. In the second session everything went well, but in the final it went bad again: I had severe understeer on both sets of tires. Because of this I couldn’t attack and I lost a lot of time. I don’t understand the reasons for such problems.

The pace over a long series of laps doesn’t look too promising. If the car is out of balance, the race will be difficult. We haven’t performed well in the last few stages, so we need to improve the situation and become more competitive.”

Sergio Perez (8th): “I think our weaknesses were more apparent on this circuit. With this level of downforce, the balance issues are particularly noticeable.

I had a great lap in the final on the rolled-in tyres, but after changing to a new set the behaviour of the car changed – we need to understand what caused this. On the last flying lap in the final I went off the track a bit. I knew Max was behind so I tried to get him going, but it didn’t have much effect.

Poor performance – I am disappointed, as is the whole team. At the moment the car is too sensitive, and this is the biggest problem. In general we have too serious balance problems that are not easy to solve, because we have to push to the limit.

“Tomorrow is the most important day, so the whole team stays motivated. We need a strong race. We have a good pace over a long series of laps, so we will try to minimize the losses with two cars and earn a lot of points.”