Max Verstappen hit out on the handling of the red flag in Q2 when Lance Stroll crashed. He reacted angrily to the delay of it, which sealed his early exit from qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The session was postponed to Saturday morning due to weather conditions, which made it impossible to run on Saturday. Verstappen’s championship rival Lando Norris took Pole in a session full of red flags.
For Verstappen, everything went wrong in the second segment of qualifying. As track conditions improved, the Dutchman dropped to 12th and was blocked from a final qualifying attempt by Lance Stroll’s crash, which brought out yellow flags.
Forced to slow down as he passed the damaged Aston Martin, Verstappen saw his hopes fade when a red flag ended the session. He angrily gestured in the cockpit and voiced his disappointment on team radio, knowing there would be no restart.
Talking to Sky Sports F1 after the session, Verstappen expressed his frustration on the red flag.
“If a guy goes straight into the wall, it is a straight red,” he said. “I don’t understand why you need to take 30, 40 seconds for a red flag to come out. It’s just bullshit.”
When told that the red flag it allowed some drivers to finish their laps, Verstappen replied: “I don’t care in all honesty, it is so stupid to talk about. It’s ridiculous.”
Speaking then to F1TV, he went further and explained that being in the first garage of the pitlane makes it difficult to be up front when the session restarts.
“We’re already limited with the pits because we’re at the back so when you do the restart time, you have to wait until you go out so we are always at the back. But then… it really blows my mind.”
Asked on his hopes for the race, Verstappen stated: “[We’re] starting far in the back, so it will be quite difficult to pass around here with all the spray and the amount of rain, but we’ll have a look.”
Also speaking to Sky Sports F1, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was also not happy with the delay of the red flag deployment.
“It’s hugely frustrating in a session like that, there’s obviously a huge amount going on.
“I don’t understand why it took so long for the red flag to come out for obviously a big accident. Turn 3 and one of the most dangerous corners on the circuit.
“It took 40 seconds to throw the red flag and it’s the second day in a row now that we’ve had very late calls, whether it was a VSC yesterday or the red flag today, the other red flags were all instantaneous.
“So very, very harsh. But it is what it is. We’ve got to try and fight back this afternoon.”
The 27-year-old driver qualified in P12, but has to drop five more positions due to an engine penalty. As of now, he starts from P17. However, there are a few cars who might start from the pit lane or won’t even participate due to extensive damage.
