Max Verstappen calls for Red Bull investigation after car 'failure'

Max Verstappen has called on Red Bull to investigate a peculiar issue that hindered his performance during qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman entered the session after enjoying a positive FP3 outing, in which he managed to finish inside the top three.

However, he was unable to remain in the fight at the front for qualifying and slipped to sixth place at the end of Q3.

During the session, he was complaining about an issue with his rear axle and voiced his frustration that the problem occurred at such an important part of the weekend.

“In FP3, we actually had a very good improvement overnight,” he said.

“The car was in a much better window, but we didn't really touch the car too much going into qualifying.

“I suddenly had a feeling that something failed on the rear axle again, not the wing, but something else mechanically, which we have to look into again. 

“It's not the first time this happened, but it happened at random times over the weekend. 

“Unfortunately, now it happened at the most important part.”

Verstappen was also due to be towed around Q3 by team-mate Liam Lawson - however, the New Zealander failed to advance into the final session after being blocked by Oscar Piastri during Q2.

However, Verstappen insisted it made little difference to his own result due to the problems he was having behind the wheel.

“When you have these kind of problems, it becomes super difficult to drive,” he said.

“The car is not compliant anymore when it should [be] over bumps and kerbs, and that's just costing lap time. 

“I actually thought that with how the car was responding in FP3, I didn't think I was fighting for pole, but it was quite a comfortable car to drive for once.

“That was actually really nice but unfortunately we picked up another problem.”