Max Verstappen laments 'two problems' with his Red Bull after 'extra painful' qualifying

Max Verstappen has bemoaned the balance of his RB22 and its lack of power after qualifying a disappointing seventh at Silverstone.

The four-time F1 drivers' champion will line up for the British Grand Prix two places behind Isack Hadjar, having suffered the rare indignity of being outperformed by his Red Bull team-mate.

The Dutchman was one-and-a-half tenths slower than the 21-year-old in the grid-setting session, but explained issues with his car played their part in the result.

"Yeah, two problems," the 71-time grand prix winner told media, including RacingNews365, when asked what had gone wrong.

"The car [in sprint qualifying] was already not great. I think [in qualifying] we didn't really seem to make an improvement on that side, so it was pretty much the same, but at the same time also very slow on the straights."

"For whatever reason, my side of the garage, from the first lap, just down on power, and around here, when you're down on power, you spend more time on the straight, so you burn your battery more, and that then even has a bigger effect in the last sector, where basically out of Turn 15 [Stowe], there is no power, so I just kept losing a lot on the straights, plus a bad balance, so it was just very, very poor."

One week removed from his storming drive to second at the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen's fortunes have turned on their head.

He finished sixth in the one-third distance sprint race at Silverstone, after "getting destroyed" by those around him fighting for points.

"In the sprint race, we were getting destroyed in the very high speed; I had George [Russell] behind me, who was catching me in dirty air in the high speed, so that says quite a lot," he said.

"But even in the low speed, I'm just not happy with how the car has been handling the whole weekend, so there's a clear disconnect."

'No point in racing like this'

Whilst Red Bull-Ford's fledgling internal combustion engine leads the way in the FIA's ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities) rankings, Verstappen's power unit left something to be desired on Saturday.

Speaking to Dutch media, the 28-year-old hinted at wanting to make changes and start from the pit lane for the 52-lap race, but it has yet to be established if he will.

"It's just not going forward," he described when explaining the nature of the difficulties he faced.

"It's not pulling the same as what it was. On a track like this, where that is key, you want as much power as you can, and it's even extra painful.

"Of course, driver input can make a difference, and I've tried a lot of different things throughout qualifying, but it was just always the same.

"So, there's a clear problem, and that's something that also worries me for [the grand prix], because there's actually no point to racing like this, to keep the car the same."