Max Verstappen was concerned about his Red Bull during the Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying session as a sudden storm swept across the Interlagos track.
Max Verstappen, during Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying, “shouted on the radio” in panic as strong winds blew his Red Bull all over the Sao Paulo track.
With a few minutes remaining in Q3, a storm that was headed toward the city called off the session. As Fernando Alonso noted, the track was soaked by heavy downpours and felt as though night had fallen due to the dense, black clouds.
But the first indicator that the weather was about to take a turn was the sudden increase in wind speed. And that caused havoc for the cars as drivers suddenly battled against the elements without warning.
It appears Verstappen didn’t realize at first that the wind was the source of his problems. He revealed after the session that he was having trouble finding the pace he was used to and was afraid there was an issue with his car.
Even though his lap time was over a half-second slower than his Q2 time, he was still able to lock down pole position for the race on Sunday. “There weren’t many differences between any of them. Thus, it was evident from Q1 and Q2 that a lot of tire sets were being used by everyone, which I believe made it pretty interesting “, he said.
“Then, of course, we lined up to go out for Q3 and you could see the sky was just black. And I was like: ‘Wow, if that rain hits it’s going to be a lot’. So the out lap was quite quick and then we went for the lap, the first sector felt alright and then the rest of the lap felt shocking.
I think what happened, of course, throughout the lap was that the rain was coming in, it was not hitting the track yet, but the wind increased a lot – and it changed direction with a tailwind in the middle sector
The car was just sliding all over the place. I was shouting on the radio, like: ‘What the hell happened? We are nowhere’. But the team just told me to keep pushing because they said everyone was struggling out there.
“However, I’ve never encountered anything similar, wherein it has such a significant impact on vehicle balance.” However, it was also evident that extremely severe weather was on the way.”
It was a remarkable development for Charles Leclerc, who was second fastest behind Verstappen. Watching the rain fall and the lightning flash, the wide-eyed Monegasque remarked, “I’ve never experienced that in my career.” “That change in wind was insane.”