Oracle Red Bull Racing were left searching for answers after a difficult Sprint Qualifying session at the 2026 Canadian Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar both struggling with the RB22’s behaviour over the bumpy Circuit Gilles Villeneuve surface.
Verstappen ultimately qualified seventh for Saturday’s Sprint, narrowly ahead of teammate Hadjar in eighth, as Red Bull fell behind the pace of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, McLaren Formula 1 Team and Scuderia Ferrari.
Verstappen affected by the RB22’s instability
While Verstappen’s pace during the opening stages of Sprint Qualifying appeared competitive, the Dutchman admitted he was not surprised to see rival teams pull further clear as the session progressed.
“I mean, I’m not surprised,” Verstappen explained afterwards. “I mean just yeah, my feeling in the car was not very good, I was struggling a lot with just the the ride of the car.”
“So all over the the bumps couldn’t put my foot down actually my feet were even flying off the pedal.”
The four-time World Champion said the instability of the RB22 made it nearly impossible to consistently attack the lap around Montreal’s low-grip, kerb-heavy layout.
“So Yeah, just made it very difficult to be consistent and that’s something that we need to investigate.”
When asked whether Red Bull had managed to improve the car compared to Free Practice 1 earlier in the day, Verstappen admitted little progress had been made.
“No, no, I was not great so, of course we were stuck with that for the the Sprint, but Yeah, some other things to understand and hopefully that will be then a bit better for quali.”
Verstappen remained uncertain about Red Bull’s prospects for the remainder of the weekend, adding simply: “I don’t know, we’ll see.”
Hadjar echoing Verstappen’s bouncing issues
On the other side of the Red Bull garage, Hadjar slotted in behind Verstappen in SQ3, although the French driver echoed Verstappen’s frustrations regarding the car’s bouncing issues during the 2026 F1 Canadian GP Sprint Qualifying session.
“I had slow build-up,” Hadjar explained. “I mean FP1, I didn’t even get like a time on the soft [tyre]. So yeah, I’d like poor references so I was building up slowly.”
However, Hadjar felt more comfortable once Sprint Qualifying reached its closing stages.
“I had finally a good feeling in in SQ3 on the soft. So yeah, I’m happy about that final, final lap, and also the gap to my teammates is closer obviously than Miami It’s a bit reassuring. but yeah at the moment we both don’t have a good feeling in the car.”
Hadjar admitted Red Bull were losing significant lap time through the circuit’s bumps despite the underlying grip level of the RB22, and was unaware about the gap to the likes of Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari during the F1 Sprint Qualifying session.
“Actually don’t know what’s the gap to be honest with you,” he said. “But we were struggling massively with bouncing and in the track state is not good. This is where we’re losing a lot of time. Even if the grip is there we can’t use it.”
With both drivers pointing towards the same ride and bouncing limitations, Red Bull now has limited options with both cars under parc fermé conditions until the main Qualifying session in Montreal.
