Max Verstappen feared his huge slide out of the final corner in qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was going to be "quite spicy" while he faced the wall, with his slip-up a symptom of a difficult-to-tame Red Bull Formula 1 car.
In the face of McLaren's expected dominance, Verstappen looked set to mount a solid challenge by being the only driver to save two brand-new sets of soft tyres for the deciding Q3 shootout.
But his first Q3 lap provided a jaw-clenching example of his RB20 mimicking a bucking bronco over one lap, with Verstappen suffering a huge 45-degree slide out of the final corner that pitted him towards the inside wall.
Verstappen managed to save the car and despite the incident his 1m22.045s was good for provisional pole ahead of the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
But while both McLarens bolted on fresh tyres to take a commanding front-row lock-out, Verstappen failed to improve on his second set as he continued to struggle with balance issues.
That punted the four-time world champion down to fifth, behind the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and the outstanding Nico Hulkenberg in the Haas, before the German received a three-place grid drop for overtaking on pit exit that moves Verstappen up to fourth.
Asked by Autosport about his huge save coming onto the start-finish straight, Verstappen said: "When I was facing towards the wall I was like ‘this could be quite spicy’, but it was not quick.
"I think the whole weekend we’ve not found the sweet spot, unfortunately. Maybe we looked okay in Q1 and Q2 but most of the time people were aborting their laps on new tyres and then every time in the beginning of the session people behind me were on scrubbed tyres and not new.
"Then in Q3 it was OK but just not how I liked it, the car was never really planted, it was difficult in some corners and it made it very difficult to be consistent.
"It happened in many different corners, because if you try to adjust one or two and then something else happened in another corner.
“The balance shift that we get throughout the corner at some tracks is a bit more limiting than at others. [For the second run] I adjusted the front wing a bit and everything was made worse."
Verstappen says the balance problems prevented him from potentially splitting the McLarens at the front, with Norris leading Piastri off the line on Sunday as they chase a constructors' title for McLaren.
"I should’ve been on the front row but it is still not bad," he said. "If we fix our problems, we will pick up a lot of lap time.
“The balance shift we have makes it very difficult to find a good compromise with the tools that we have in the car, so we need to work on that for next year. If we can fix that then I am confident we can have a quick race car."
Unlike last week's Qatar Grand Prix, where he took his ninth win of the season, Verstappen is not expecting to mix it up with the McLarens on race pace, but thinks Sainz's third-placed Ferrari is a more realistic target to chase.
"Yes, I still think that McLaren is too quick," he added. "I hope that I can race with Ferrari, with Carlos especially as Charles [Leclerc] starts from the back. Then there is that spicy battle next to me for sixth so let’s see how that goes for those around me.
"To really fight McLaren it is unlikely as they’ve been on it the whole weekend again and so comfortably quick with both drivers.
“This time it is not like Qatar when we nailed it over a lap and in the race they were still very fast but we hung in there. This time we are a bit further behind."
