Max Verstappen says everything "just fell apart" in qualifying for Formula 1's Austrian Grand Prix, as his Red Bull team suspected higher temperatures derailed its hopes of challenging McLaren.
The reigning world champion had appeared to be McLaren's main challenger heading into qualifying, but his pace fell away as track temperatures shot above 45°C.
Verstappen then aborted his final lap when yellow flags were brought out for Pierre Gasly's spin at the last corner, which left Verstappen seventh on the grid.
But even without the last run issue, Verstappen had not been happy with things - as he complained on the radio about a lack of grip and a poor balance.
Reflecting afterwards, he was left struggling to explain why things were so bad after practice.
"I didn't expect it to be this bad in qualifying, but I think no one did in the team so that's something that we have to analyse," he said.
Asked by The Race if the team had gone in the wrong direction with set-up, Verstappen said: "[It was] just very tiny little changes that shouldn't influence the car balance.
"That's all manageable but suddenly with the higher track temps and more wind, everything just fell apart."
Verstappen reckoned that, despite some pace potential even on Friday, the warning signs had been there about how difficult things would be.
"Yesterday already was not good," he said. "Over one lap, the long run wasn't good. FP3, I think was a little bit more positive, but still off. But in qualifying basically everything felt bad. Every corner was a struggle.
"I just didn't have a balance. It was either understeer or oversteer. Every single lap that I did I had a bit of a different behaviour with the car. So yeah, that's not ideal."
Red Bull suspected that the high track temperatures pushed its car out of its ideal balance window, but reckoned Verstappen had got a grip on things by the time of his final run in Q3.
Its own predictions of Verstappen's final lap put him on course to deliver a 1m04.4s or 1m04.5s effort at the end, which could have been enough to put him on the front row alongside polesitter Lando Norris.
Verstappen admitted that the warmer temperatures were probably the main cause of Red Bull's woes.
"Probably didn't help, yeah," he said. "The hotter conditions for sure are not that good for our car."
And even though a sense of optimism remained that Red Bull's pace was not as bad as it looked, Verstappen was sceptical of being able to make much progress in the race.
Speaking about what can be achieved based on the long-run form, Verstappen said: "Not a lot. Not to fight up front for sure. The hotter conditions don't help as well.
"So far this year, we've never really been more competitive in the race than qualifying as well. We'll see what we can do."
Tsunoda's getting fed up
The most encouraging three practice sessions of Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull Racing stint since his strong start at the Japanese Grand Prix came to nought in Austria with a third Q1 exit in five races.
Tsunoda had been in the top 10 in both FP2 and FP3 and even though he was 'only' 0.26s slower than Verstappen in Q1, that was enough to be on the wrong side of the cutoff in 18th.
"I don't know, have to check but the balance was completely off the last lap," Tsunoda said when asked what went wrong.
"It felt quite good in first push and [then in] second push, somehow just completely off. I don't think I’ve done anything wrong with warm-up or anything. To be honest...the balance was completely different so it's hard to explain."
It was quite the setback for Tsunoda, considering how comfortable he felt in practice - more comfortable "than any grand prix, just not able to somehow put it all together in qualifying".
Tsunoda was visibly frustrated post-qualifying, having expected to at least be inside the top 10 in qualifying for the first time since the Miami GP in early May.
"Sure I'm going in the right direction of how I'm approaching and progress, but with this kind of very narrow window car, just want to have as much consistency as possible," Tsunoda said.
"Max [was] kind of reporting same in Q2, but at least he knows this car, how to handle it. Even if it's a bit of surprise between runs he can probably adapt, myself [and the] difference I felt, especially between first and second run, I'm not in the level that I can adjust fully in the lap or maximise the package.
"Not even the level I was doing in VCARB. Every time in qualifying, it’s getting frustrating."
He said the RB21 is not "undriveable" but has a "small window" that he can't stay in as the track evolves, and was quoted in Red Bull's post-qualifying press release as saying: "I am tired of it not going the way we want."
Tsunoda said "I hope I don’t have to" start from the pitlane for the fourth time in six weekends, but he will do so if the team judges it to be the better strategy for Sunday.
