A bitter pill for Max Verstappen: a nasty surprise in Monza qualifying

Max Verstappen experienced a rollercoaster of emotions on qualifying Saturday at Monza today. In the third free practice session, the four-time champion was delighted to set the third-fastest lap time and to see a significant improvement in the handling of his car. In qualifying, however, he struggled with an unstable rear axle and ultimately had to settle for the sixth-fastest lap time.

Afterwards, the Dutchman commented in his usual blunt manner: “Actually, there’s always something else that’s not right. All year so far, there’s always been something happening with the rear axle. It can be in free practice, in qualifying or in the race. Now it’s happened again in qualifying and that’s cost us a lot of lap time. That’s a shame, of course, because things weren’t going badly in the third practice session – the car’s balance was good. But yes, something always goes wrong, and that’s a shame.”

The rear wing, which had repeatedly caused problems for the 71-time Grand Prix winner, wasn’t the reason for the painful loss of time this time round, Verstappen emphasised when asked. And he added dryly: “But we’ve had a lot of problems this year, and that’s one of them.”

Verstappen also admitted frankly: “I’m not happy with the result, because I thought a lot more would have been possible, as the third practice session had gone very well. Unfortunately, our performance in qualifying wasn’t the same, and that’s a real shame, because naturally you want to optimise everything in qualifying.”

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