NO BULL AS MAX TURNS RADIO BLUE
Verstappen blasts car and team over an ‘absolutely shocking experience’
MAX VERSTAPPEN lost his cool after qualifying for today’s Singapore Grand Prix from a shock 11th as Lance Stroll was involved in a huge crash.
Runaway championship leader Verstappen swore over the team radio as he struggled with his unexpectedly uncompetitive Red Bull, which threatens to end his record-breaking run of wins.
He could only watch Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz (bottom right) take pole with Brit George Russell second. Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who has been off Russell’s pace for much of the weekend, starts down in fifth.
But while Verstappen (below, top) turned the air blue on a wild night at the Marina Bay Circuit, Stroll survived a staggering crash at 110mph.
The Canadian driver lost control of his Aston Martin through the final left-hander before he slammed into the barrier.
The force of the high-speed impact sent Stroll’s head rocking from side-to-side.
He catapulted back across the track with Lando Norris forced to take evasive action – dodging a flying wheel and Stroll’s out-of-control machine.
Stroll pirouetted to a standstill in the middle of the track before his race engineer Ben Michell came on the radio.
“Lance, car is safe,” said Michell. “Are you OK?”.
Stroll, 24, replied: “Yeah, I am OK.”
The Aston Martin driver emerged from his wrecked car unaided before being taken off to the medical centre. It was confirmed Stroll had been given the all-clear by the on-site medical team and was allowed to return to the paddock.
Stroll’s accident brought a premature end to a frenetic conclusion to Q1 – and then it was the turn of Verstappen to take centre stage. Verstappen was eliminated in Q2 after he bemoaned the handling of the Red Bull machine which has carried him to a record 10 consecutive wins – and the Dutchman then blasted his team over the radio.
“I don’t know if you saw that but it was an absolutely shocking experience,” he said amid expletives. His team-mate Sergio Perez, who spun, also failed to progress to Q3. He will start 13th following a miserable night for the team from Milton Keynes in the city-state.
Verstappen said: “Our car on this circuit, we couldn’t get it into the right window. Every session we’ve been chasing it.
“P3 was quite a bit better. We tried a few things for qualifying that tipped it over the edge. It became supersensitive, and you can’t push, massive bottoming, sliding around. Pretty much a weekend to forget.”