Red Bull changes made ‘zero difference’ as Max Verstappen laments ‘difficult to drive’ car in Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying

Max Verstappen believes that changes implemented by Red Bull for Qualifying made ‘zero difference’, with the four-time World Champion set to start the Chinese Grand Prix from eighth on the grid.

The Dutchman has endured a difficult start to the season with the RB22, and his fortunes failed to improve on Saturday in Shanghai as he finished outside the points in the Sprint.

Later in Qualifying, Verstappen was unable to match the pace set by Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, qualifying nearly one second behind polesitter Kimi Antonelli on the fourth row.

“It’s the same. We changed the whole car [from the Sprint] and it makes zero difference,” he said.

“I have no balance, so you can’t even lap after lap get a bit of a reference because it’s just all over the place and it’s incredibly difficult to drive. It’s not good.

“We are where we should be. That’s probably also where we will be racing tomorrow.”

Red Bull team mate Isack Hadjar was also unable to challenge the leading teams, with the Frenchman set to start 10th on the grid.

“Honestly, no regrets. I did everything I could, put a good lap in, but I’m just not very happy with the balance and I was just a bit slow compared with the cars around,” he said.

“It’s not where we want to be as a team but we will just fight and understand.

“There’s been a lot of work to turn things around compared with yesterday. We are so far away from the lead that we are trying things and it’s still not really working but at least we try and understand.”