What was behind Max Verstappen’s qualifying struggles at F1’s Austrian GP?

P7 and P18 — not exactly the starting positions Red Bull had in mind for its home race in Spielberg.

Yuki Tsunoda was eliminated in Q1, and Max Verstappen was never in the fight for pole during Saturday’s qualifying session.

Of course, the late yellow flag caused by Pierre Gasly didn’t help. Red Bull believed that without that incident, Verstappen could’ve started third, but the Dutchman didn’t want to blame bad luck.

In fact, the world champion’s explanation after the session was crystal clear: “Suddenly with the higher track temps and more wind, everything just fell apart.”

Why did Red Bull suffer so much in the heat?

It’s no secret that the RB21 doesn’t perform well in hot conditions — especially over long runs, where the rear tyres overheat quickly, widening the gap to McLaren.

But this time, even over a single lap, Red Bull struggled in the heat. According to Pirelli, this wasn’t due to simple overheating of the rear tyres.

“No, one lap was feasible. We didn’t have complaints that in the last sector the tyres were not in the right temperature window,” said Pirelli chief Mario Isola. “As usual the preparation lap, the out lap, is super important. But this is the same every weekend.”

Mario Isola, Racing Manager, Pirelli Motorsport

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

If it wasn’t simply overheating, the problem must lie deeper: the car completely fell out of its ideal operating window. One possible explanation for that is set-up changes, but Verstappen immediately said that wasn’t the case: “We didn’t touch the car, just very tiny little changes that shouldn’t influence the car balance. I mean that’s all manageable.”

When Verstappen says “we didn’t touch the car,” he’s referring to the period after the third practice session. From Friday to Saturday, changes were made as usual, partly because Verstappen reported understeer in earlier sessions. Team sources say the tweaks were solely aimed at improving feel and overall pace, not so much specific weather. In FP3, that seemed to work — Verstappen wasn’t fully satisfied but closed the gap to the fastest McLaren to around two tenths per lap.

But in Saturday afternoon’s heat, the RB21 no longer worked as Verstappen expected it to do. This may be down to the interaction between car and tyres when the temperatures ramped up, though Pirelli sees a more nuanced issue.

“Some teams reported that they struggled a little bit with the balance,” said Isola. “I believe, mainly because they were trying to protect the rear tyres.

“If you want a good race pace you need to protect the rear and keep a good traction for a long stint. But then they went a little bit above with the front tyres. The absolute performance in qualifying is a different story from the race pace.”

When Autosport asked whether the soft tyre’s behaviour over one lap changed significantly in the heat — given Red Bull seemed happy in FP3 but struggled in warmer qualifying — Isola replied: “Based on my info, without releasing any confidential information, it seems that the teams that were adjusting the set-up had a better result compared to teams that were more in line with Friday.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Tim Clarke

That’s an interesting point. Isola clarified that he was referring to anticipating the heat — the higher track temperatures. Red Bull seemingly didn’t adjust things specifically for that, but the main question is whether that’s even possible with the RB21.

Still a too-narrow operating window — and no easy fix?

This situation once again highlights how narrow the RB21’s set-up window is. It was a problem with last year’s car and remains a headache at times.

The new floor update hasn’t solved it either — though most of that update package is due next week in Silverstone. Autosport has learned that additional new parts can still follow in subsequent races, but from the summer break onward, focus has to shift entirely to 2026. Red Bull tries to play around with tyre pressures a bit more within the allowed limits to compensate for the narrow window, but of course that’s not a long-term solution.

A structural fix for the car’s narrow operating window doesn’t seem likely this season. Over the winter, both Helmut Marko and Christian Horner identified it as a key issue, but Marko said it isn’t resolved.

The contrast with McLaren is stark: the MCL39 performs well on almost any track, with any compound, and in any condition — while Red Bull needs very specific circumstances to even challenge the papaya cars.

Technical director Pierre Wache explained to Autosport last year that it’s always a trade-off. Widening the operating window may reduce the overall car potential.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

“As an ideal world, sure, you’d want both things. But you know that the overall potential of a car can get lower if you widen the window,” Wache said. “I won’t reduce performance just to make things easier operationally. You can compromise the potential of a car to help drivers, but not just to help engineers.”

Instead, the goal was to find the ideal window for every track — no matter how small it might be — but as 2025 shows, that’s easier said than done. Red Bull’s home race qualifying performance is the latest reminder of that.

It is one of the key — and perhaps underrated — areas where McLaren stands out. Sure, Canada was a slightly weaker weekend for the MCL39, but even there McLaren drivers showed the best long-run pace on Friday, albeit marginally.

Other top teams lack that consistency and have smaller operating windows. Ferrari has had races where it wasn’t in contention; Mercedes still struggles in the heat; and qualifying in Austria provided a new reality check for Red Bull.

All of this makes it very difficult — and according to Verstappen, even unrealistic — to turn this season around. Red Bull isn’t just lacking pure performance (three tenths per lap according to Marko) and tyre management; it also has a significantly smaller performance window compared to McLaren. Since improving both typically requires trade-offs, as Wache explained, solving them in just a few races (before shifting focus to 2026) seems an incredibly tall order — and looking at Austria’s qualifying, likely too tall.