Horner puzzled after disastrous Singapore qualifying for Red Bull

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner was left puzzled after the team suffered a double Q2 exit during Singapore Grand Prix qualifying.

Sergio Perez spun on his final attempt to improve, while Max Verstappen continued to struggle with his balance issues and was knocked out by Liam Lawson in the dying moments of the session.

Red Bull made a lot of setup changes to both cars in between FP3 and qualifying, but Horner believes it is a track-specific issue that prevented the team from showing its usual dominant performance.

"The car was just not responding to changes, [we had] understeer, oversteer, braking issues, it's like we haven't managed to get the tyre into the right working window," he told Sky Sports.

"Usually when you see a gap that big is because the tyre isn't just fundamentally working now. We've tried different things, we've set up, we've tried different preparations, and it's just not happened.

"So a lot for us to understand tonight to try and turn around. Obviously very, very tough for us to make good progress from those grids tomorrow."

Horner: When it doesn't rain, it pours

Verstappen is involved in three post-session investigations by the stewards, all of which are for impeding other drivers.

One is for coming to a stop in the pit lane, which the stewards are looking at for contravening Article 37.5 of the F1 Sporting Regulations.

This dictates: Any driver taking part in any practice session who, in the opinion of the stewards, stops unnecessarily on the circuit or unnecessarily impedes another driver shall be subject to the penalties referred to in Article 37.4.

When asked about a potential penalty, Horner responded: "The one in the pit lane, we've seen hundreds of examples of drivers driving slowly out the pits.

"I think even George [Russell] stopped behind us in the pit lane or certainly was very slow coming out, so I don't really see that's an issue."

The Dutchman was also involved in some incidents out on track, but Horner was confident that Verstappen might escape any penalty for the stewards.

"The [Yuki] Tsunoda one, there was enough space up the inside for him having looked at the replay - I think that's marginal," he said.

"The [Logan] Sargeant one... there was so much going on down there. So I mean, let's see, that's with the stewards but when it doesn't rain here it pours and that's what we've had today."