Max Verstappen expects his winning streak to end after enduring a horror qualifying session for Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.
The Dutchman will line up 11th for the race in Marina Bay after both he and Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez were bundled out in Qualifying 2.
It’s a performance that comes on the back of a difficult build-up to Saturday night’s knock-out session.
Ferrari proved the car to beat throughout practice while the RB19, in the hands of either Verstappen or Perez, looked a handful.
That was reflected on the timesheets, and while progress was made, it didn’t prove enough.
“You can forget about that,” he told the media in Singapore when asked about his chances of victory on Sunday.
“I want to win, but when it’s not possible you have to accept that.
“I don’t want to make it sound too dramatic, but it was of course a very tough weekend and today in qualifying it’s definitely been for a long, long time that in qualifying it has been like this.
“Clearly we just don’t understand that issue,” he added.
“You don’t make these kind of changes and it’s worse, so we are clearly not understanding the car this weekend around this track.”
The Red Bull RB19 has dominated 2023, winning every race this season and propelling Verstappen to a record-setting 10 consecutive world championship race wins.
A more difficult weekend was expected in Singapore, though the reality is proving even worse than those predictions.
The challenge has been getting the car to work around Marina Bay, a venue that has proved an enigma for dominant cars of the past.
In 2015, the all-conquering Mercedes team was undone by the Singapore street circuit.
“FP3 was better, we made some good progress,” Verstappen said of his weekend prior to qualifying.
“It was still not where we wanted to be, but it was looking like something.
“But then we made a few more changes which we thought the set-up would allow but then we got into qualifying and the first big problem I had was that I couldn’t brake late and hard because I would bottom out and would unload the front tyres.
“On a street circuit, that is something which is very crucial, to be confident on the brakes and attack the corners, so I couldn’t do that.
“Also just the low-speed corners where I think we have been struggling already the whole weekend, I just had no rear support,” he continued.
“So I just kept on having mini slides or, in my final lap, a big one at Turn 3. When it’s like that, there is no lap time.”
While starting out of the top 10 tomorrow, Verstappen has had success racing his way through the field before.
However, he is not optimistic of a repeat this time around.
“You can’t pass,” he noted of the Marina Bay circuit.
“On other tracks you can start last, probably in Spa you can start last and win the race, but not here.
“Here you need to be two, three seconds faster to have a chance to pass. So, that’s just street circuit stuff.”
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