This weekend was billed as the big moment for Red Bull, with a major package of upgrades intended to put them back in front of McLaren and the rest of the field. But when it came to it, it still wasn't enough.
Max Verstappen was 0.046s off the pole position time set by Lando Norris. The margins were so fine that it meant Verstappen won't even be on the front row of the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri pipping him for P2.
Verstappen wasn't quickest in any of the three rounds of qualifying, which took place in changeable conditions beset by a number of light rain showers and two red flags - one for his own team mate Sergio Perez in Q1.
Verstappen has also not topped any of the practice sessions at the Hungaroring, with the team prioritising working on bedding in its new components rather than single lap speed.
“It was all right, but not good enough,” Verstappen said of his qualifying performance today. “I mean the whole weekend, yeah, just a little bit too slow.
"We tried to optimise everything. Tried quite a few things, actually, with the car. At the end [we were] still too slow. So, yeah, that’s what it is.
"Looking back at my qualifying, I was just very happy with the laps. But balance-wise, everything is really on the edge," he explained. “I’m pushing as hard as I can, and then of course you have little moments here and there.
“I feel like I probably pushed harder than I did last year. But it’s just not coming anymore, you know, to have these great lap times," he sighed. “So I guess it just means that we are a bit slower, so we have work to do.
“It’s a bit difficult to pinpoint why that is. I would have liked a bit more grip, but it’s not there at the moment."
There was surprise in the paddock when Verstappen opted not to make a final run following a late red flag for Yuki Tsunoda's accident in Q3. After pummelling his steering wheel in frustration, he climbed out of his cockpit early.
“We’d done our lap, we had no tyres left," he told the official Formula 1 TV channel. "You’re not going to improve on a used set of tyres so better to save the car, keep it in the garage.”
“There was only ever going to be some gamesmanship at the end there," he added.
Verstappen acknowledged that this meant the new parts including a revised engine cover lacking the Mercedes-inspiring styling hadn't delivered everything that Red Bull had been hoping for.
"For sure, they work, but we’re still not first, right?" he said. "So we need more. It’s as simple as that," he said, acknowledging that problems getting the RB20 to work within a narrow optimum window were proving crucial.
“It’s been like that already for a while, so we are well aware of that,” he noted. “We're pushing as hard as we can, but clearly at the moment it’s still not how we want it to be. We’ll continue to try to find more performance.
“But I’m also well aware that that it's not very easy to find [more pace] suddenly during the season, with things already just planned," he added. "We need to stay focused and do the best we can every single time, and optimise our performances.
"There are many races, there are a lot of things that can happen, you know, in qualifying, with conditions, stuff like that," he pointed out as he looked ahead to what he can do in tomorrow's race.
"We’ll try the very best. Try to have a good, stable balance with the car," he said. "I hope if I find that that I can follow them. But I don’t know. Honestly, my long runs have been okay but nothing fantastic or special.
“I think it’s better to be realistic rather than sitting here and spreading false hope," he added. "But yeah, we’ll see tomorrow. I mean, that’s what it is.”
“I love competition," he insisted. "But I would like to be on top of the competition, and at the moment I feel like we are chasing and having a few more difficult weekends. But I don’t back out of a fight.”
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