The four-time world champion endured a difficult Saturday that followed an equally challenging Sprint race earlier in the day, where he finished ninth and missed out on the points.
Verstappen revealed the team had made significant changes to the RB22 between the Sprint and qualifying in an attempt to improve its handling, but the effort produced no improvement.
“No. It was the same. Turned it upside down and it was exactly the same. So I’m expecting exactly the same tomorrow,” Verstappen said when asked if the car would be better for the race.
The Dutchman expects to spend Sunday battling in a similar area of the field after qualifying outside the top seven.
“Not much. Where we are. P7. P8. Probably fighting a bit with Pierre [Gasly], but that’s it, yeah. There’s not more in it,” he explained.
Verstappen’s frustrations were clear as he described how difficult the car has been to manage throughout the weekend.
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“It’s incredibly tough to drive,” he said.
“There is no balance. I cannot lean on the car. Every lap is a fight. Yeah, it’s just very difficult.”
Tyre performance has also proven problematic around the Shanghai International Circuit, with Verstappen fearing the issue could make the race even more challenging.
“Yeah, I mean every time I did another lap on the tyre set it felt awful,” he added.
“So, yeah, I honestly think it’s going to be quite tough tomorrow.”
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The problems had already been evident earlier in the day during the Sprint race, where Verstappen struggled from start to finish after qualifying eighth for the shorter contest.
A poor getaway dropped him down the order before he recovered to ninth, leaving him just outside the points.
“I have not a lot of words at the moment, to be honest,” Verstappen said after the Sprint.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Start, of course, is one problem that we have to fix, but then after that the balance is all over the place.”
He also highlighted tyre issues and general instability as major factors behind Red Bull’s struggles.
“Probably the highest degradation of everyone out there, which is just uncontrollable,” he explained.
“Plus some other bits on the car that were not, I would say, well prepared. We just need to get our stuff together.”
Even after Red Bull made sweeping setup changes once parc fermé restrictions were lifted, Verstappen said the issues remained.
“We changed a lot on the car, it makes zero difference,” he explained.
“The whole weekend, we’ve been off. The car is completely undriveable.
“I can’t even put a bit of a reference in, every lap is like survival. I can’t push at all because the car doesn’t let me.”
The Dutchman admitted the inconsistency of the RB22 is making it impossible to build confidence through a lap.
“Also I cannot push. Every lap is honestly survival for me,” he said.
“I’m not enjoying it at all. It’s just very inconsistent. I cannot build a reference through qualifying.”
Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve also weighed in on Verstappen’s struggles, suggesting the Red Bull driver is visibly frustrated by the car’s behaviour.
“Maybe it was a little bit off the pace, but they could fine-tune it. Right now, he’s all over the place,” Villeneuve said on Sky Sports F1.
“He has no feedback. He doesn’t know… he just knows the car is undriveable.
“He doesn’t know what to do with it, and he’s frustrated.
“So he’s not even in the right mental space, so it will be very tough for the team to move forward.”
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