Verstappen explains Austria qualifying crash: 'As I turned the wheel I was gone'

Max Verstappen will start the Austrian Grand Prix from fifth on the grid after a sudden, unexplained snap at Turn 9 ended his qualifying lap in the barriers at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday.

The reigning world champion had been pushing hard to match the pace of the quicker Mercedes cars in the closing seconds of his final Q3 run, with poleman George Russell already having set the benchmark. Verstappen looked on course for the front row before losing the rear of his RB22 and spinning into the barriers — the first time all weekend he had encountered a problem at that corner.

“That lap, already in Turn 6 I had a very weird snap on entry, because that’s basically the second highest speed [corner],” Verstappen explained. “And then when I went into Turn 9, as soon as I turned the wheel I was gone. It felt like a bit of a lack of some downforce or oversteer. I didn’t even change anything on the car. There is margin in places, so you try to push a little bit more, but at the same time also not a stupid amount more. But as soon as I turned the wheel it just completely went away.”

Verstappen estimated the crash cost him two grid positions, though he was measured about the real-world impact given Red Bull’s well-documented difficulties off the start line. “I think realistically we could have been P3, it’s a little bit better than P5,” he said. “But realistically, I think even if we would have been P3, coming off the line is hard for us, so you probably drop back to P5, but that’s what it is at the moment.”

Red Bull arrived in Spielberg with a significant upgrade package — fitting given the circuit sits at the team’s parent company’s home — and Verstappen acknowledged it appeared to have delivered a meaningful step forward. However, he stopped short of drawing firm conclusions from a single short-lap venue, saying the team would need a larger sample size at next weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone to fully evaluate the changes.

“This track is a very short lap, right? Actually, a lot of people were close,” he said. “I think there’s still a few things that we want to understand from the package that worked well, maybe some bits not so well, and then we’ll just work from there.”

Team-mate Isack Hadjar qualified eighth, a tenth and a half adrift of Verstappen and half a second behind Russell, after struggling with front locking into Turns 1 and 3.