SINGAPORE – Max Verstappen said he received a “zero” from the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday after he found himself struggling to break through the field.
Verstappen’s weekend took a turn for the worse in qualifying when he was forced to drop a lap fast enough to get to the post because his car ran out of fuel for an FIA model after the test.
The championship leader finished eighth on the grid but fell to 12th at the start when his anti-stall system interfered with his vacation.
He managed to recover to fifth, but ran wide on Turn 7 trying to overtake McLaren’s Lando Norris to finish fourth. He damaged his tires in the process when they locked in on the brakes and was then forced to refit for a new one, sending him further down the sequence.
Verstappen fought back to seventh, including past Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel at the end of the race, but said the moves did not improve his mood as he crossed the line.
“Zero,” he said when asked if he had any interest in Sunday’s race. “This is not something I enjoy.”
Verstappen said he made a mistake after plunging under the brakes when trying to overtake Norris.
“I tried to move on the Lando but somehow I completely bottomed as soon as I hit the brake so the front wheel went up in the air and I must have really locked up because I had big flat spots. So I had to go down the hole again and put in new tires.
“I got my points back, but of course that’s not what we wanted and after yesterday [in qualifying] We can’t ask for miracles. “
Despite the mistake, Verstappen still won the title next weekend in Japan on the condition that he beat Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by eight points and teammate Sergio Perez’s six. But, again, Verstappen was not much comforted by the championship situation.
“It’s not a normal thing, I think we’re still 104 ahead, but it’s just been a very nasty weekend,” he said.
“Of course I can say it doesn’t matter, we have five races left and we have a lead, but I wanted to have a good weekend and we had a good weekend. the horror. Of course, it started yesterday. with the big f — increasing in qualifying.”
Verstappen revealed he was so frustrated after qualifying that he left the lap early and skipped part of the interview with the team.
“I wasn’t in the mood to talk,” he explained. “It’s not to make a statement, it’s just my feeling. It wouldn’t be helpful to talk about.”
