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Max Verstappen’s worst weekend of the year was catalysed by a miscalculated set-up change - and exacerbated by a crash involving his team-mate Sergio Perez and a strong recovery from title rival Lando Norris.
The Red Bull driver said his car was a “monster” at Monza but spoke of improvements to the car’s disconnected balance in Azerbaijan - at least until Red Bull took what he felt was the wrong set-up path between final practice and qualifying.
The Dutchman lost out to Perez in qualifying for the first time since Miami in May last year, lining up sixth on the grid to Perez’s fourth.
What then played out on Sunday will prove a disappointment to Red Bull given there were encouraging signs earlier in the weekend.
More concerning is that Verstappen hasn’t struggled quite this much before.
On a losing streak now spanning seven grands prix, Verstappen finished fifth - behind Norris, who exited qualifying in Q1 after what he called an “unfair” yellow flag that forced him to slow down.
That fifth-place finish could have been seventh if Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz hadn’t crashed spectacularly in the closing moments of the race. Ironically, Verstappen had just pitted for soft tyres to bid for fastest lap before that Perez-Sainz clash brought out the virtual safety car.
“If you look at my race… everything just was the worst-case scenario. My general balance of course that I had, then being stuck behind Alex [Albon] and Lando.”
Verstappen’s car was visibly unstable in Baku, and whatever change Red Bull had made on Saturday “made it really difficult to drive”, despite the favourable effects of the weekend's floor upgrade.
The defending champion complained about a lack of "bite", implying that the front tyres weren’t responding as he needed, in the first part of the race, and he had braking troubles in the second stint.
“The car was jumping around a lot. The wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners. So when you don't have contact patch with the Tarmac, it's very difficult.
“We thought it would be a good direction to go into and [in] the end it wasn't.”
Verstappen’s lead over Norris is set at 59 points heading to Singapore, while McLaren leads the constructors’ championship by 20 points.
Team principal Christian Horner said after the race: “I think there will be a big post-mortem to see what the variances between the two cars are, which are obviously reasonably subtle.
"But he [Verstappen] was not as comfortable as Checo was today. So, obviously, we need to get into that to understand why.”
The Red Bull boss added that Verstappen was also churning through tyres faster than Perez.
Whether Red Bull can turn things around at Singapore, which is a similarly demanding venue to Baku, or bring a redeeming upgrade package to Austin, is unclear.
“Look, we're pushing hard. We're now not defending, we're chasing. So it changes the dynamic again. And we're just going to throw everything at it,” said Horner.
Perez’s crash with Sainz also creates another headache for Red Bull.
With Singapore looming, Red Bull now faces a race against time to produce enough replacement parts for next weekend’s race - though Horner doesn't sound too concerned.
“I don't have the Gs [G-force figures], but it was a significant impact,” said Horner. “It's three corners of the car, floor, bodywork, everything that you don't want to be having to fix when the cars are being freighted to Singapore.
“The guys and girls have been working around the clock. And they'll be in tonight, in the factory, trying to produce parts to get to Singapore. So, [we’ve] still got five days ‘til that weekend starts. Everybody's on it.”
The late-race crash was even more painful for Red Bull given Horner said the Mexican was putting on a “race-winning performance” - although at the time Perez was battling for third place with Sainz.
Horner pointed at Norris’s backing-up of Perez earlier on in the race, which allowed team-mate Oscar Piastri to resist an undercut from the faster Red Bull.
“I think actually he could've won that race had it not been for… [losing] a lot of time behind Alex Albon initially and then Lando, while he was on new tyres and Oscar was still out on the old tyres, Lando backed him [Perez] up, which allowed Oscar to keep track position.
“I think without that we would've been ahead of Oscar and he would've passed Leclerc and he would've been fine. Hugely frustrating.”
In the meantime, Red Bull will be working double shifts to find out why Verstappen was so far behind Perez while fabricating parts for the race in Singapore.
It was a nightmare of a weekend for the defending constructors’ champion and defending drivers’ champion alike, but the saving grace is that Norris only outscored Verstappen by three points.
Given Red Bull’s brutally poor weekend at Monza and another one here in Azerbaijan, that is something of a reprieve.
The 20-point lead that McLaren holds going into Singapore is the kicker, though - and things could get even worse next weekend.
