The four-time world champion’s qualifying came to an abrupt end in Q1 when he spun under braking for Turn 1 on his first flying lap of the session.
The Dutchman slid through the gravel before striking the barrier, bringing an end to his session and ensuring a rear-of-grid start.
Verstappen admitted he was stunned by the incident itself, explaining that the rear axle suddenly locked as he applied the brakes.
“I mean, I just hit the pedal and the whole rear axle just completely locked,” he explained.
“Which, especially with these F1 cars, [is] very weird, I mean I’ve never experienced that in my whole life.”
The Red Bull driver’s frustration extended beyond the crash itself, as he continued to voice strong criticism of Formula 1’s new generation of machinery.
Click here now.
“I said how I thought about it. I mean, I’m definitely not having fun at all with these cars,” he added.
“I don’t know, you can make up your mind – but I think if you look at the onboard, you see enough, right?”
Verstappen’s comments follow reports that he delivered a blunt assessment of the new regulations during Friday’s drivers’ briefing.
The Dutchman reacted angrily when told details of that discussion had emerged publicly.
“It’s a bit weird that, you know. Drivers shouldn’t be speaking,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s not very professional, I find, from the people involved.”
Despite suggestions F1 could make adjustments to energy harvesting and deployment rules during the season, Verstappen believed those changes would not solve what he sees as a deeper issue with the formula.
“You can only make it slower and then of course you get a bit more of a normal speed trace – but it’s a slower speed trace,” he said.
“The formula is just not correct. And that is something that is a bit harder to change. But I think we need to.”
The four-time world champion also revealed he required precautionary X-rays on his hands following the heavy impact at Albert Park.
Images showed Verstappen appearing to feel discomfort in his hands after climbing out of the car, but scans later confirmed he had avoided serious injury.
“All good,” he said afterwards.
“I just had to get some X-rays done to see if my hands were okay, but nothing was broken.”
The difficult start to the new era also coincided with a tough qualifying session for Red Bull, with Verstappen highlighting the scale of the gap to the front after Mercedes locked out the front row.
“Well, I mean, the gap is eight tenths to P1. So that’s still a very big gap,” he said.
“And we know that we have to improve the car and engine to fight Mercedes, because at the end of the day we’re not here to be P3-4-5-6-whatever.
“We’re here to win. Step by step hopefully we can get closer.”
The former champion suggested the season ahead could be a difficult one as teams continue to get to grips with the new rules.
“It’s going to be a long season,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
Discussion about this post