Untelevised footage from Abu Dhabi Grand Prix has uncovered the moment Red Bull driver Max Verstappen described his session as “s**t” after a poor qualifying performance.

Having sealed a fourth consecutive title in Las Vegas last month, Verstappen collected his ninth victory of the F1 2024 season at last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen bemoans Red Bull RB20 balance woes at Abu Dhabi GP

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

However, the Red Bull driver’s hopes of ending the year on a high suffered a blow in qualifying at Yas Marina, where he could only manage fifth as Constructors’ Championship leaders McLaren secured a front-row lockout with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen’s first Q3 attempt was undone by a dramatic slide at the final corner before a disappointing second run left him behind Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg.

Hulkenberg was later penalised for overtaking two cars in the pit lane, promoting Verstappen to fourth on the grid.

And an untelevised moment at the end of the session has revealed the moment Verstappen aired his frustrations with the RB20 car in an exchange with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

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In the clip, Verstappen is heard saying at the end of the session: “Wow. ****, that was s***. There’s no balance.”

Lambiase replies: “Your first run might have got you on the front row, but yeah. Pole was a 22:6.

Verstappen adds: “Yeah, but even there the car was super sensitive through everything. As soon as I open the wheel a little bit earlier or later, snapping everywhere.”

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after the session, Verstappen conceded that Red Bull have been unable to find the RB20’s sweetspot in Abu Dhabi with the car’s medium-to-low-speed layout exposing the car’s weaknesses more than Qatar last weekend.

He said: “At one point I was facing towards the wall and I was like: ‘Hmm, this can be quite spicy.’ Of course, it’s not quick [to have a moment like that].

“But I think the whole weekend, we’ve never found that sweet spot unfortunately.

“Maybe we looked quite OK in Q1 and Q2, but for most of the time people were aborting their laps on new tyres, and then every time at the beginning of a session people behind me were on scrubbed tires when I had new.

“And then in Q3, it was OK but just not how I like it. The car was never really planted, always a bit difficult in some corners and it made it very difficult to to be consistent.

“[On the second Q3 run] it happened in many different corners because you try to adjust one, one or two [corners], and then something else happened in another corner. That made it difficult.

“The front end is stronger now [compared to practice], so that was a bit more positive, but it’s the balance shift that we get throughout the corner, which in some tracks is a bit more limiting than others.

“[The team ] did a good job overnight, I think we did make the right adjustments. It’s just sometimes the track layout is a bit different.

“We know that we are good in the medium to very high speed. Of course, here we also have some low-speed corners and it’s more medium-to-low speed.

“That’s always been a bit more our weakness. I think we have improved in that area, but we still have some things to improve on.

“I adjusted the front wing [for the second run] and it made everything just even worse, oversteer and understeer in places.”

Verstappen admitted that it will be “quite unlikely” to challenge McLaren for the win, with his battle expected to be with Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz for the final podium spot.

Ferrari entered the Abu Dhabi GP weekend with hopes of overturning McLaren’s 21-point lead in the Constructors’ title race, but the team face an uphill struggle with Sainz’s team-mate Charles Leclerc starting from the back of the grid due to a 10-place engine penalty.

Verstappen explained: “I still think that McLaren is too quick. I hope that I can race maybe with Ferrari – Carlos especially as Charles will start from the back – and of course there’s a spicy battle next to me for P6, so let’s see how that will go on Lap 1.

“It will be [a race of tyre management], but at the end of the day you also need a good balance to go with it so hopefully we have that.

“But to really fight McLaren, I think, will be quite unlikely. They’ve been on it the whole weekend again and so comfortably quick with both drivers.

“This time it’s not like Qatar, where we nailed it over a lap and in the race they were still very fast, but we definitely hung in there.

“This time, I think we’re all a bit further behind.”

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