Verstappen engine trouble derails Baku qualifying
NXTbets Pro | Published On: September 26, 2026
Verstappen’s engine trouble
Max Verstappen qualified eighth for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku after a power unit problem cut into his pace. He had topped final practice before qualifying, but the speed disappeared when the session began. Verstappen said the issue came from the internal combustion engine, not from an electrical deployment problem, and he traced the trouble back to Q1. It got worse through Q2 and Q3. By the end of the session, he said the problem had cost him at least half a second and left him short on the straights. That margin was enough to knock him out of the fight near the front and force Red Bull to settle for a place well outside the top five.
The Dutchman said second place should have been within reach if the car had run cleanly. Instead, he spent the session dealing with a machine that never gave him the platform he needed. His comments painted a clear picture of a car that lacked the punch to keep up once the track began to tighten and the speeds climbed. For a driver who had shown the best pace in final practice, the result made qualifying a frustrating reversal and pushed him into recovery mode before the race.
Q3 battery setback
The hardest blow came in Q3, when a battery problem forced Verstappen to abort a lap. That stop ruined tire temperature and left him unable to maximize his final run. A yellow flag from Lando Norris added another setback and made the final push even harder. Verstappen did not frame the problem as one isolated failure. He described a chain of issues that spread across the session and left Red Bull with no clean path to the front. The early engine trouble slowed the car, the aborted lap hurt the tire preparation and the yellow flag took away one more chance to recover time.
Verstappen said the car was not “robust” enough to handle the problems that came up in qualifying. That word fit the tone of his assessment. He was direct about how much the issue hurt the run plan and how quickly the session slipped away once the car started missing power. The result was a frustrating starting spot after a day that had begun with promise. In a field where fine margins decide the order, the combination of engine trouble, a battery issue and traffic left him with no room to make up for lost time.
Red Bull’s parts change
Red Bull fitted a fresh internal combustion engine, turbocharger, exhaust set and power unit ancillary component before Sunday’s race. The team drew those parts from Verstappen’s allocated pool, so he avoided a grid penalty in Baku. Verstappen said he expected to take a penalty later in the season. The new parts did not erase the lack of pace that showed up in qualifying.
The rest of the session also showed how sharp the battle at the front was. Isack Hadjar qualified fourth, a strong result that added another name near the top of the order while Verstappen labored in eighth. That gap underscored how costly the power unit issue became for Red Bull’s lead driver. Qualifying had already shifted the burden onto Verstappen to recover ground once the lights went out.
