I didn't know Hungarian GP was going to be this hard – Verstappen

Max Verstappen says he was aware Red Bull might not be at its most competitive in the Hungarian Grand Prix but did not expect to struggle as much as he has after qualifying eighth.

The Dutchman won the Sprint race in Belgium last weekend but has not been on the podium in any of the last three grands prix, and that run looks set to stretch to four after an uncompetitive weekend so far. While the top six in qualifying were covered by just 0.126s, Verstappen was 0.356s adrift in eighth and actually viewed a top ten start as a positive outcome.

“Looking at the whole weekend, I think we are happy to be in Q3 because I’ve been more outside the top ten than in,” Verstappen said. “The whole weekend I’ve had no grip, front and rear, and it was the same in qualifying. It’s not really a shock; I just drove to what I already feel the whole weekend.

“There’s not been a single lap or a single corner that I’ve felt good. The whole weekend so far has just been sliding … I have no grip. I knew it wouldn’t be the strongest weekend for us here, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard.”

Verstappen acknowledged Red Bull struggled relative to McLaren in Budapest a year ago, but says the biggest challenge has been the way this year’s car has not responded to any changes that the team has made.

“I think we still qualified very close to pole [last season], like within a few hundredths," he explained. "We were a lot more competitive back then. This weekend, already from lap one, just felt off. We threw the car around a lot and nothing really gave the direction.

“That of course is the biggest problem, because when you change a lot from the setup it will always give you positives or negatives, and [nothing worked]. It was just going round in circles and nothing gave you any kind of idea of what to do.”

Verstappen doesn’t believe there will be a significant amount of forward movement in Sunday’s race given the pace shown so far, adding: “There’s a few cars ahead of me that I can maybe battle with a little bit, but of course Lewis (Hamilton) is a little bit further down the road and he shouldn’t be there, right? He will come through a bit.”