It was a difficult Friday for Red Bull, with both Milton Keynes cars set to line up on the fourth row of the grid. Specifically, Max Verstappen complained about the RB22’s lack of stability over the bumps, with the majority of his time deficit originating in the twisty sections where driver confidence and curb-riding are paramount.
If there is one issue Max Verstappen has repeatedly complained about this season, it is the Red Bull’s lack of stability. Even in Miami, his best race of the year, the Dutch driver flagged excessive car movement multiple times during free practice, especially under braking—a phase where precision is absolutely vital.
Here in Montreal, the situation is slightly different. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve remains a street track, which means dealing with a highly uneven asphalt surface packed with bumps and dips at various points of the lap. When you factor in how aggressively drivers must attack the curbs in Canada, having a stable car becomes even more critical.
This stability was completely missing for Verstappen throughout Friday, complicating matters significantly. Struggling with a car that constantly snaps and unbalances makes it incredibly difficult to find the consistent, predictable behavior needed to extract those final tenths of a second when it matters most in qualifying.
This is not the first time Red Bull has suffered from these types of issues. In previous years, their drivers often complained about the car’s characteristics in Canada, as well as in Monaco and Singapore—tracks where mechanical compliance carries immense weight. Granted, the technical context was slightly different back then, as it revolved around running the floor at very low ride heights, but the baseline concept remains identical.
This is precisely why Verstappen was not surprised by his seventh-place finish in Sprint Qualifying. He even ended up behind both Ferraris, which were initially expected to struggle more over a single lap on a track like this, where Power Unit performance heavily influences straight-line lap times.
Although the RB22 was more competitive down the straights than the SF-26, the time lost across the first and second sectors—especially in the tighter, twisty sections—made it impossible for Verstappen to outqualify either Ferrari. Given the challenges the Dutchman faced, it is no surprise that his most critical areas were the downhill section between Turns 3 and 4, the Turn 5-6 chicane, and the Turn 8-9 chicane, all points on the track where intense curb-riding is required.
“I’m not surprised [by the position]. The feeling in the car was not good at all. I struggled a lot with the behavior of the car over the bumps. On all the bumps, I couldn’t put my foot down on the throttle. My feet were actually even flying off the pedals. This made everything very difficult in terms of consistency, and it is something we need to investigate,” the four-time world champion said after qualifying, explaining how he struggled to even keep his foot flat on the gas.
“It was not a great result. For the Sprint, we are obviously locked into this setup, but there are other things to understand and hopefully we can fix them a bit better ahead of qualifying.”
Fortunately, parc fermé regulations allow teams to alter setups again before Saturday’s main qualifying session. This means Red Bull can theoretically still salvage their weekend if they find a better operational window. According to Technical Director Pierre Waché, the team at least has some ideas on where to improve. While the Sprint format complicates plans by reducing the opportunity for on-track experimentation, the chance to break parc fermé before the main qualifying session offers a vital window to pursue alternative setup solutions.
“We have identified a direction to follow, but bringing the tire into the ideal window was quite difficult. Sprint qualifying did not go the way we hoped. We had an issue with Max, because the performance of the car worsened as the session progressed, so we need to understand what happened,” Waché added.
Red Bull’s bumpy ride in Montreal highlights a recurring Achilles’ heel for the RB22 on street circuits. Verstappen’s shocking revelation about losing contact with his pedals underlines just how far out of the setup window the team currently finds itself. However, with parc fermé rules opening up ahead of the main qualifying session, the engineering team has a crucial opportunity to re-adjust their mechanical platform, aiming to transform a compromised weekend into a competitive race performance against their front-running rivals.
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