As of 28 September 2026, anyone following Max Verstappen motorsport news already knows how Saturday ended at Monza. Pierre Gasly took pole position for the Italian Grand Prix. Verstappen could only qualify sixth, after a recurring rear axle failure disrupted his RB22 late in the session.
Red Bull’s other car fared little better. Liam Lawson failed to reach Q3 after being impeded by Oscar Piastri, leaving both Red Bull drivers short of the grid spots they wanted at a track that usually rewards their straight-line speed.
Monza qualifying update September 2026
Gasly’s pole for the Italian Grand Prix put him ahead of the entire field, with Verstappen sixth once his own runs were compromised. The rear axle failure was the difference between a car capable of fighting near the front and one that struggled to string a clean lap together.
Lawson’s session ended early for a different reason. Blocked by Piastri at a crucial moment, he never got the space to post a time worthy of Q3. Between the two cars, it was a difficult Saturday for the team at a circuit it usually enjoys.
Verstappen struggles with RB22 bouncing and rear axle failure
Verstappen compared his RB22 to paper after the session, a blunt way of describing how little he trusted the car through Monza’s kerbs and chicanes. The rear axle failure that cost him time is not a new complaint. Red Bull has wrestled with rear end bouncing for years without finding a lasting fix, and Monza only brought it back into view.
The problem is mechanical rather than something a setup change can hide. Verstappen explained the pattern himself:
“We sometimes have components on the car that either break or get stuck. I’ve had that feeling quite often throughout the season,”
He was careful to separate the seriousness of the fault from its cost. The rear end issue at Monza was not dangerous, he said, but it still cost him valuable lap time he could not claw back.
Max Verstappen motorsport feedback on Red Bull handling
Verstappen’s clearest feedback this weekend was about trust rather than raw pace. He says the RB22’s unpredictable handling has pushed him to hold back and take fewer risks in races, rather than push the car to its limit. That is the heart of the Max Verstappen motorsport story right now: a driver who trusts his own hands more than the car underneath him.
He was equally direct about where responsibility sits. Red Bull has heard the complaints, he says, but has not yet solved them.
“The team does listen to me and they are also trying to solve it, but at the moment they’re just not succeeding,”
It is not a claim of neglect. It is a driver saying the effort is real, but the result still is not there.
What happens next
Red Bull’s engineers now have limited time to fix a fault that has followed the car for years, not just one weekend. The team’s technical direction sits alongside other questions in the garage, including the ongoing Red Bull contract situation involving Isack Hadjar.
Fixes for bouncing and axle failures rarely arrive overnight in Formula 1. They tend to filter down from the same wider performance car engineering developments that take months to validate before any team trusts them at a grand prix.
For the fuller account of how this issue built up over the season, read our original report on Verstappen. For now, Verstappen heads into the rest of the season sixth on the Monza grid, still waiting for Red Bull to turn its listening into a lasting answer.
