Barcelona qualifying boost not enough for Verstappen

Red Bull spent the Barcelona weekend searching for grip, balance and tyre performance on a hot circuit that made lap time hard to find. Max Verstappen said the car felt sensitive in practice and that nothing worked well on any of the three tyre compounds, with the team looking only midfield-fast on single-lap pace after Friday. He was fourth in FP1 and sixth in FP2, and both he and the team said there was still a lot of work to do before qualifying.

After major setup changes overnight, Verstappen said the car improved in qualifying and Red Bull cut the gap to the front to about three tenths from roughly six or seven tenths in practice. He said a slide and time loss in the final sector of his last lap, along with overheating tyres and a disrupted Q3 session after Charles Leclerc’s red flag, kept him from turning that improvement into a stronger result.

Even with the turnaround, Verstappen said Red Bull was still not quick enough to fight at the very front. He said the race should depend more on tyre degradation, pit stops and strategy than on grid position, with overtaking expected to be difficult at Barcelona. Verstappen also said he had no new hard tyres left after using his allocation in practice, which could make Sunday tougher in the expected heat.