Red Bull's lack of pace 'a bit of a mystery' admits Verstappen after Hungarian GP Qualifying

Max Verstappen claims that Red Bull's lack of pace ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix is "a bit of a mystery at the moment" having registered his worst Qualifying performance of the season.

The four-time and reigning World Champion will start eighth for Sunday's 70-lap race having struggled for grip all weekend at the Hungaroring with Red Bull's RB21.

Verstappen claimed that although Red Bull usually struggles on Friday before turning it around for Saturday running, that was not the case in Budapest despite only finishing 0.356s behind shock polesitter Charles Leclerc.

"We didn't seem to find it. We tried a lot as a team and unfortunately nothing really helped our balance," said Verstappen when asked if there had been a performance increase overnight.

"It's really difficult to explain how we suddenly just this weekend have a lot of difficulties with the car. Just no grip on the front, in the rear, difficult to balance it out.

"It's a bit of a mystery at the moment. Just the whole weekend off the pace."

Team mate Yuki Tsunoda also struggled, failing to move beyond Q1 despite only being just over one-tenth slower than Verstappen at the same stage in Qualifying.

The Japanese driver, who will start P16 for the race, also believed that not optimising his running during FP3 played a role in advancing further up the grid when the margins remain so small in 2025.

"I think overall this weekend we've struggled as a team," he said. "In that situation, I wanted to maximise performance but we're just slow and also FP3 preparation wasn't good at all which was in our control completely.

"We completely missed that, especially fighting in a tight session like this, all these things count. It can happen like that.

"[The car] is just sliding around. I think pretty much that's it. The grip we should normally get is not there and probably something we are missing completely."