Verstappen concedes Red Bull "have been off the pace" over the whole weekend

On the back of a tough qualifying session in which he failed to fight for top positions, reigning champion Max Verstappen conceded that Red Bull have "been off the pace" over the whole weekend in Hungary.

Red Bull failed to find the rhythm on Friday at the Hungaroring, but they looked in a slightly better shape come the third and final practice. However, that uptick in form fell away in qualifying, as neither Max Verstappen nor Yuki Tsunoda looked comfortable in the all-important session.

The Japanese was just over a tenth slower than the Dutchman in the first qualifying segment, but it was enough for him to fall at the first time of asking in Q1. Although Verstappen made it through in Q1 and progress into the final segment, he was never in the fight for the front rows and recorded his worst Qualifying of the year with an eighth place.

Reflecting on his tough qualifying, Verstappen said: “It hasn’t been a great weekend and nothing has really worked throughout. The whole weekend we have been off the pace and struggling for grip and it unfortunately meant that each lap in Qualifying was a struggle.

"We didn’t have a good balance of the car in the laps and had quite a low grip feeling on the front and rear axel. We tried a lot throughout the weekend and we didn’t get many answers.

"Nothing made much of a difference, which was strange as we normally get a response when we change the setup of the car throughout the weekend.

"It wasn’t a great performance, but we did maximise everything that we could and we will investigate further ahead of tomorrow. We didn’t have great pace today and tomorrow it will be tough to pass the cars in front but you never know what will happen.”