Laurent Mekies has conceded to Red Bull and Max Verstappen paying a heavy price after his team opted to "take risks" with the four-time F1 champion's car.
Verstappen headed into São Paulo firmly in the hunt for a fifth consecutive F1 drivers' championship after closing the gap at the top of the standings to 36 points on McLaren's Lando Norris, with Oscar Piastri just a point behind his team-mate.
The Dutchman, however, has endured a nightmare time with the RB21, complaining primarily of a lack of grip around Interlagos. At one stage, after the second qualifying session for the sprint, he said it was "completely broken" and "undriveable".
Verstappen salvaged fourth in the 24-lap race from sixth on the grid, leaving hopes high of an improvement in qualifying for the grand prix.
Yet for only the second time in Verstappen's 229-race F1 career, he failed to make it out of Q1 on pure pace. The other occasion was for the 2017 Chinese GP.
Verstappen will line up a wretched 16th on the grid, three places ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda. It is the first time in 19 years, since the 2006 Japanese GP, that Red Bull has failed to get a car out of Q1.
"Nobody expected something like that," said team principal Mekies, speaking to Sky Sports F1. "We have been unhappy with the car pretty much since we got here, and you heard our struggles through the practice session, sprint quali and sprint.
"Nonetheless, we were at a point where we could not fight for the win, but we could fight with the group just behind. It's fair to say that we took some more risks before qualifying to try to see if we could put the car in a better place.
"It obviously went in the opposite direction, so that's where we are now. It's sometimes the price you pay when you take risks. It cannot always go your way. It's painful, but it's something we can learn from and improve."
Mekies confirmed that his team "did significantly change the car" out of necessity.
Red Bull even used Yuki Tsunoda as a guinea pig in the sprint, placing a higher downforce rear wing on his car in a bid to provide the grip required through the twisty second sector of the track where Verstappen had struggled for pace on Friday.
The changes did not work, so Red Bull opted for another set-up direction with Verstappen for qualifying, which was a spectacular failure.
"That's the sort of risk you have to take if you want to give yourself a chance to put the car back in a window where it could fight for something bigger than where we were this morning," insisted Mekies.
"As I said, it went in the opposite direction, so now we are where we are. They were bold changes. We have been bold in our approach for a long time. That's the way we go racing, and sometimes it hurts."
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