Red Bull paid the price for 'uncontrollable' RB20 in Baku, says Verstappen

Max Verstappen lamented Red Bull's changes that left the RB20 "uncontrollable" at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday.

Verstappen could only manage fifth place around the streets of Baku, but remains 59 points ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris, who finished one place in front.

But the Dutchman was the beneficiary of a collision involving Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap of the race.

Verstappen has now gone six grand prix without a pole position and seven without a victory, last winning at the Spanish Grand Prix in June.

The three-time world champion cited issues with his car during qualifying that seemed to carry over into the race, but is confident Red Bull can respond in Singapore next time.

"I think the changes we did to the car were positive, but then you still need of course to do the set-up on the car," Verstappen said.

“I think we were heading in the right direction but then the changes that we made before qualifying tipped it over the edge.

"We paid the price for that in the race unfortunately.”

Tough weekend. I know we can do much better, let’s go for it next week!#KeepPushing #AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/0nRiNcGJrW

— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) September 15, 2024

The Dutchman was able to further detail the difficulties he experienced on track, saying: “My wheels were literally coming off the ground.

“Then of course you lose contact patch with the tarmac which you don’t want.

"That then caused me to slide a lot more, overheat the tyres more and there was no way to drive around it so the pace was just a bit all over the place.

“I had to box and then it was just a bit unfortunate I got stuck behind Alex and Lando.

"I was in that fight, George passed me, and then we actually had good pace, the two of us.

"We were catching the leaders but then as soon as I got close to George again within that window where you have the dirty air, because of the jumping that I’m dealing with I’m sliding already quite a bit.

“And then when I get close to him I’m sliding even more and that just tipped it over the edge where it becomes quite uncontrollable towards the end of the race, which was very difficult again.”