Canada is one of the trickiest circuits on the calendar, with unbalanced chicanes, the Virage Senna, and the hairpin. It’s showing, as a lot of drivers are struggling. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc said this has been the worst weekend of his whole Formula 1 career. However, Red Bull — particularly Max Verstappen — may be having a more difficult time, even though he qualified two places above Leclerc.
Red Bull brought an upgrade package to Miami that worked well. Verstappen finished in the top five in the Sprint Race, qualified second later on in the day, but after spinning in the first turn, he ended up finishing in fifth once again. Teammate Isack Hadjar crashed out of the race.
Red Bull brought a few more toys to Montréal; however, the car looks to be back to pre-Miami form, where both drivers are stuck in no man’s land. Verstappen finished FP1 in P5, ahead of both McLaren's and right behind both Mercedes' and Ferrari’s. It looked like a promising weekend was ahead, but it fell off quickly.
Verstappen would qualify P7 for the Sprint and finish it there. He was right there with the cars, but he struggled to gain any serious time needed to make an attempt at an overtake. Qualifying was where things really went downhill, as Verstappen just couldn’t get anything going. Hadjar, on the other hand, either topped the timesheets or got close to doing so in all of Q1 and Q2. Out of nowhere, all of that pace went away, and Hadjar ended up qualifying one place behind Verstappen in P8.
It was one thing after another for Verstappen, who qualified P7 for Sunday’s Grand Prix. Whether he couldn’t get any temperature into his front tires, or his steering was off, he couldn't maximize the car. When asked about qualifying by the media, Max said, “I don't know. That's the honest answer. I have no idea what is going on. Everything is so confusing.”
Verstappen was vocal about his issues on the radio, and when asked about it, he said that every lap just got worse, “Every lap I did, no matter how more I drove, the slower I went on the straights. I make up lap time in the corners, and I lost more than I won on the straights. No clue if we did stuff correctly there. I asked a few times, [but] didn't hear anything back. Got no feedback.” When asked about why he didn’t get any feedback, Verstappen replied, “Yeah, they probably didn't know why themselves.”
The real problem here is Verstappen told the team that this setup wasn’t going to work many times, but Red Bull was so adamant they wanted to do it, so he said fine, go ahead. “I tried something with the car; the team wanted that. I told them, ‘Go ahead, but that's clearly not the right direction.’ I already could've guessed that, but at least we now know for sure. I tried it a lot of times, and it never works, but they're convinced it does, but it's clear it doesn't.”
Red Bull having Verstappen, whom many consider to be the best driver in the world, on their team and not listening to him is certainly a choice. Verstappen may be loud on the radio when things go south, but he never throws his team under the bus in post-interactions. He must’ve been really over the edge, or just not have cared anymore, because the team went their own way anyway. He sees where this ship is going.
There’s rain scheduled on the forecast, and that always shakes things up. Plus, Verstappen is a wizard in the wet. But, he wasn’t too confident about it, as he stated again how he’ll struggle to get heat into his intermediate or full wet tires if it gets to that point.
The bottom line is Verstappen, Hadjar, and the whole team have no idea what is wrong with the car, are still collecting data (data in which they have done nothing with), and have no idea where to make their first step. We’ll see how things go for Red Bull when the lights go out; Verstappen doesn’t seem so confident.