Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were both eliminated in Q2 at the Brazilian Grand Prix, caught out by a late red flag when Lance Stroll binned his Aston Martin.
Stroll was the third of five drivers to crash at a wet Interlagos circuit on Sunday morning, the Canadian putting his car into the barrier at Turn 2.
But instead of immediate red flags, it took F1 race director Niels Wittich 40 seconds to stop the session at which time there was only a minute and a half left on the clock. Wittich ruled the session would not restart.
Verstappen, who behind Stroll on the track and therefore slowed when he saw the initial waved yellows, was furious that the session was not red flagged straight away.
Calling it “ridiculous”, he raged: “The car hits the wall, it needs to be a straight red. I don’t understand why it needs to take 30, 40 seconds for a red flag to come out. It’s just bulls**t.”
Albers, though, says Red Bull should’ve gone out earlier.
“These are circumstances that you have to be on top of,” the former F1 driver told Viaplay. “You also have to be a bit lucky here, and sometimes it is not fair.
“But to be fair, they went out much too late. In these circumstances, it is much better to go earlier than later, you do not want to take this risk with a red flag.”
One team that did go out early was McLaren.
The Woking team was not only the first to run the intermediates in Q2, but it was Verstappen’s title rival Lando Norris who led the field out when the session was restarted after a red flag for Carlos Sainz’s crash.
He lay down the laps, going quicker with each circuit, while Red Bull were late to the party – Verstappen covering fewer laps than Norris – and got caught out by the session’s second red flag. The reigning World Champion was eliminated in 12th place with the same fate befalling his team-mate Sergio Perez, who was 13th.
Albers believes Red Bull’s “arrogance” cost them as they just believe Verstappen can pull it off without the necessary preparation.
“Indeed, then they let him [Verstappen] drive, because you want to know what that car does, then they can give him confidence,” Albers said. “That’s what you miss at Red Bull, they should have been a bit more aggressive.
“This is also the arrogance of Red Bull, who only has confidence in Max Verstappen. That’s the problem, right, having that confidence in that team, that they’ll just do it.
“Then you notice that he doesn’t have enough time, because he was searching, where should that car go. Then they shoot themselves in the foot.”
“It was a painful qualifying. Maybe the worst qualifying ever,” he added.
Verstappen bounced back from his qualifying woes to win the grand prix, racing from 17th to first and taking the chequered flag by 20 seconds ahead of Esteban Ocon.
