"It's not very driveable": Max Verstappen shares a pessimistic outlook for F1 Italian GP after a disastrous qualifying

The reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, had a disappointing Qualifying session at Monza. The Red Bull Racing driver expressed pessimism about his prospects for the Italian Grand Prix during the post-qualifying media interaction.

Verstappen has been struggling with the setup of his RB20 race car since the iconic Monaco Grand Prix in May this year. The issue was further accentuated after the Austrian outfit brought a new upgrade package for both the Dutchman and his teammate Sergio Perez.

Although the team was able to find a temporary solution by reverting the updates and introducing a new powertrain for Verstappen in Belgium, they have yet to identify a permanent solution to their challenge. With no easy fix available at present, the 26-year-old racer struggled to optimize performance during the Qualifying session at Monza.

Verstappen finished P7 in Q3, marking one of his most disappointing qualifying sessions in recent times. Meanwhile, his championship rival Lando Norris of McLaren managed to grab pole position for the race on Sunday.

"The car is very difficult to drive and find a good balance. If you have one issue and try to fix that, then there is another issue," Verstappen said, during a post-qualifying media interaction.

"It's not very driveable, let's put it like that. Q2 was not too bad Q3 felt very bad again - I had a lot of understeer on both tyres. I lost a lot of lap time, I couldn't really push the tyres, so struggling a lot with that for a reason I can't understand," he added, explaining the situation.

Starting behind both McLarens, Mercedes, and Ferrari, Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing will likely be looking to develop a good race strategy to maximize their result on Sunday

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"We simply don’t understand it" - Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner on sudden changes in Max Verstappen's Q2 and Q3 performance

Joining Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing's team principal Christian Horner expressed surprise at the team's sudden performance drop between Q2 and Q3. The former British racing driver appeared perplexed during the post-qualifying media interaction.

While Verstappen was able to make some progress in Q2, he was unable to keep up with the frontrunners in the penultimate Q3 session. Despite using fresh tires for both runs in the final qualifying session, the Dutchman and his teammate Sergio Perez could only manage to secure seventh and eighth positions, respectively.

“We simply don’t understand it. I think there’s something that clearly isn’t working on the car,” Horner said.

“Q2, it didn’t look too bad. Still had the handling characteristics that Max has been talking about but in Q3 there’s something I missed – the others can all improve on new tyres but we were miles away. We need to address it quickly," he added.

As of now, Max Verstappen is still leading the driver's table with 295 points, ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris (225 points) and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc (192 points).

Meanwhile, the battle for the Constructor's title is much closer. Red Bull Racing is leading with 434 points, followed closely by McLaren at 404 points and Ferrari at 370 points.