A sudden storm that swept across the Interlagos track during the Brazilian Grand Prix cut short qualifying, and Max Verstappen was concerned about his Red Bull.
During Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying, Max Verstappen “shouted on the radio” in fear as high winds blew his Red Bull all over the Sao Paulo track.
With just minutes remaining in Q3, the session was called due to a storm that was hitting the city. Fernando Alonso noted that it felt like night had fallen as the track was soaked by heavy downpours and the clouds were so dense and black.
However, the abrupt increase in wind speed was the first sign that the weather was about to change. And that led to chaos for the vehicles as drivers unpredictably found themselves up against the weather.
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.
“Of course, as we prepared to leave for Q3, the sky was completely dark. And I thought, “Whoa, that’s going to be a lot of rain if it hits.” After a fairly rapid out lap, we started the lap. While the first sector felt fine, the remaining portion 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.”
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