Both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo vented their frustration at once again seeing Red Bull’s lack of power prevent them from challenging for pole at the Spanish GP.
The two drivers sat second and third after the first runs of Q3 in qualifying but both Mercedes’ and both Ferraris would find big chunks of time on their second effort while only Ricciardo would find a few extra thousandths.
With the eventual gap sitting at six-tenths to pole position, one of the highest it has been all year, Verstappen had absolutely no doubt what was to blame.
“We just don’t have that power mode for Q3,” the Dutchman cried.
“Turn 1 to Turn 4 is flat out so it is even harder for us as we just lose more top speed and from Turn 7 to Turn 10 is also straight now so it’s all a bit more painful for us and it just gets even harder.
“Together with my final lap, I couldn’t continue after Turn 1 as I had a moment there, so the gap is probably a bit bigger than it should be.”
His Australian teammate opted to switch to the Soft compound for his final effort which would move him to within just 0.002s of Max, as they claimed fifth and sixth, and the disappointment was clear when he spoke later.
“I don’t really know what I could have done more with what we had,” Ricciardo said. “With the laps we put in I thought we would only be a couple of tenths from pole, not six or seven.
“It’s a little bit disheartening.”
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After their collision in Baku at the last race, to be starting alongside each other will no doubt create a few nerves on the Red Bull pitwall at the start, with the 28-year-old expecting a stern pre-race warning.
“For sure, I expect [team boss] Christian [Horner] to definitely have a word with us tomorrow before the race,” he was quoted by ESPN.
“For the next few races, until things calm down and he sees proof that things have calmed down, he will definitely talk to us.
“We are in a difficult position because we want to not only beat each other but try and attack Kimi [Raikkonen, who starts fourth] or whoever is in front of us,” he added.
“Look, we’ve attacked before and kept it clean, so we just need to do that.”