Verstappen calls RB22 'undriveable' as Red Bull hit by yet another mystery fault in Hungary

Max Verstappen will line up fourth on the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix after qualifying at the Hungaroring exposed yet another unexplained fault with the RB22, this time an aerodynamic deterioration that left the four-time world champion spinning at the final corner.

Verstappen actually qualified sixth, but moves up two places due to grid penalties applied to Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli. Team-mate Isack Hadjar fared little better, slotting into eighth on the grid.

The Dutchman did not hold back over team radio after his spin, telling the pit wall: “The car is just completely broken aerodynamically, it’s just getting worse and worse. What a joke. What a joke honestly, what a shit weekend.”

Speaking to Dutch media in the paddock, Verstappen elaborated on what he felt during the session. “The car just kept developing more oversteer and all the problems only got worse. I arrived at the final corner and the car just spun again. At one point, the car simply became impossible to drive,” he said.

Red Bull’s engineering team were already aware something was wrong during the session itself, having spotted the aerodynamics deteriorating in the car’s data — though neither the team nor Verstappen could yet identify the precise cause. “They already told me during qualifying that something wasn’t right in the data and that they could see the aerodynamics deteriorating,” he said. “That’s obviously not what you want during qualifying, and by that point you can’t even adjust the front wing anymore. Then the whole car is no longer in the right balance.”

What frustrated Verstappen most was the pattern emerging across recent race weekends. His previous two incidents were caused by a rotating rear wing; Hungary brought an entirely separate problem. “There’s always something different happening. It’s difficult for me to make sense of it, because I don’t know exactly what the problem was myself,” he said.

Team principal Laurent Mekies had arrived in Budapest hoping the energy-rich Hungaroring layout would suit the RB22 better than recent circuits. That optimism quickly evaporated.

When asked by Autosport whether it was possible to get the car into a workable operating window over the course of the weekend, Verstappen was blunt: “Well, that’s basically impossible. This weekend has been very difficult and qualifying was just completely hopeless. There was absolutely nothing you could do with it.”

Asked whether the run of setbacks was making him desperate, Verstappen suggested he had moved beyond that point entirely. “Desperate? I’m already past that stage,” he said.