Max Verstappen did not mince his words when asked about his outside chances of winning the Formula One 2025 World Drivers’ Championship, as he outrightly dismissed any possibilities of securing a late comeback in the final four races of the season.

“You can forget about that, yes, for sure,” Verstappen said after the qualifying session on Saturday, in which the Red Bull driver was shockingly disqualified from Q1.

It had been a tough weekend already for Verstappen, who was struggling with the car during the limited action on Friday’s only free practice session.

Even in the Sprint Qualifying round, the Dutchman could only muster a P6 and was never posing any trouble for the two McLarens.

While his race craft and Oscar Piastri’s crash had helped Max to secure a P4 in the sprint, the Red Bull driver had already lost out three points to Championship leader Lando Norris, who won the sprint.

Now, with a P16 finish in qualifying, Max Verstappen may have to repeat the miracle in Brazil last year – when he started 17th on the grid to win the grand prix – to stand any chance of remaining in the fight.

“Yeah … where we are starting, so, that’s not going to work, and with these kind of performances, I mean forget about it,” Verstappen stated after the race.

Reports suggest Red Bull are working on a new engine and a new floor after a poor qualification session, which means Max Verstappen may not even started on the grid but on the pitlane, as stipulated in the FIA rulebook.

“For sure, definitely something is off and we don’t understand how to fix it at the moment,” Max said. “We need to understand what our problems are first of all. Just not been good, it seems we don’t really understand why it’s going that way.”

“Something is just clearly not working for us, usually with the changes of the set-up normally you’d feel some kind of reaction but it doesn’t, so, yeah, something is just really off,” he added.