The championship leader was classified 12th in the session, his fate sealed by a red flag late in Qualifying 2.

That interruption was triggered by Lance Stroll, who’d crashed at Turn 3.

A 41-second delay in race control throwing the red flag meant there was insufficient time to restart the segment.

“A car hits the wall, it needs to be straight red,” Verstappen lamented to Sky Sports following his elimination.

“I don’t understand why it needs to take 30, 40 seconds for a red flag to come out.

“Honestly, I let it go,” he added.

“It’s so stupid anyway to talk about. It’s ridiculous.”

Had the red been displayed sooner, Verstappen would have been inside the top 10, while there may have also been enough time for another lap.

As it stood, a number of other drivers did improve their laps prior to the red flag being shown, relegating Verstappen to 12th.

That will become 17th for the race thanks to a five-place grid penalty, while title rival Lando Norris will start from pole.

The Stroll red flag was the third of five in the session, the qualifying hour lasting over 100 minutes in the end.

It was also the only one to experience a significant delay.

“It’s hugely frustrating,” team boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports.

“I don’t understand why it took so long for the red flag to come out.

“It’s obviously a big accident, Turn 3, one of the most dangerous corners on the circuit…

“40 seconds it took to throw the red flag.

“This is the second day in a row now that we’ve had very late calls, whether it was a VSC yesterday or the red flag today – the other red flags were all instantaneous.”

Following the impact, Stroll had initially attempted to recover his car – a point monitored by race control before the red flag was shown.

During that process, the sector was covered by double-yellow flags, meaning any drivers traversing it had their times deleted anyway.

Nonetheless, the incident is the latest in a string of encounters with the governing body that have left Verstappen feeling aggrieved.

In Singapore, he was left feeling victimised after being given community service for swearing during an FIA press conference.

He was further aggrieved when Charles Leclerc seemed to get away with swearing following the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Though the Ferrari driver was subsequently investigated and penalised, a fine was considered a far lighter punishment than Verstappen received.

Heading into the event, he was also criticised by three-time F1 race winner Johnny Herbert, who questioned his mentality during his Mexico City GP clash with Norris.

Herbert is also an FIA steward, and was part of the panel that penalised the three-time world champion in Singapore. He is performing the same role in Brazil.

On Saturday, he was demoted a place following the Sao Paulo GP Sprint for exceeding the Virtual Safety Car delta time by 0.63s.

That also cost him a point in the championship standings, allowing Norris to now close to 44 points with four races, and one Sprint, remaining in 2024.