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Where in the world did Red Bull’s pace go?

Oscar Piastri was the perplexing one over the past few weeks when it came to a drop off in form, as the Australian struggled at both COTA and Mexico City.

Answers were found, even if he didn’t quite execute the way he would have wanted throughout the first part of the Sao Paulo weekend, but now it’s another championship contender who has suffered an alarming slump, and the finger is being pointed very much at the team rather than the driver.

Max Verstappen’s struggles in Mexico City were perhaps overshadowed by Piastri’s form and the fact the Dutchman managed to rescue a third place. There has been no escaping them in Brazil, however, as a disappointing Sprint qualifying and fourth in the Sprint race was followed by a dramatic Q1 exit.

It’s Verstappen’s first Q1 elimination on pure pace in his entire Formula 1 career. Of the previous six occasions he dropped out in Q1, imminent power unit penalties or grid drops have been a factor to consider, but not Saturday at Interlagos.

Last year, starting from 16th position – 17th on the grid but with Lance Stroll not making the start – Verstappen produced a supreme drive to win. On that occasion, the Red Bull was competitive in all conditions and he had simply been unfortunate with the timing of a red flag in Q2. This time around, there’s no such silver lining.

“We need to understand what our problems are, first of all. It’s just not been good,” Verstappen said after qualifying. “It seems we don’t really understand why it’s going that way.

“Just no grip. We changed a few things on the car and it didn’t work – something we need to figure out … Nothing seems to work. We changed a lot on the car. We just don’t understand.

“Similar [feeling to Mexico] I would say, but something is just not switching on on our car at the moment.”

After such an impressive run of form when Red Bull appeared to get on top of the issues that plagued it throughout the middle of the season, it’s a shock to see such a turnaround. Not that McLaren being strong is surprising, but the clear direction working for Laurent Mekies’ team has since disappeared.

One explanation for the change in pace in the past few months: upgrades.

The difficulties in Mexico City and Sao Paulo coincide with the introduction of another new floor from Red Bull. As past struggles have shown, it is extremely tough to keep developing these cars and adding performance to them, and introducing new components is never a guarantee. The latest could be a root cause.

Despite a belief the new floor would deliver an improvement if the team could get it working, the struggles in the first part of the weekend saw Verstappen revert to the previous specification for qualifying, yet the performance relative to the rest of the field was even worse.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe abandon the dismal grid position to make wholesale changes and start from pitlane Sunday? It could happen. Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

“Something is just clearly not working for us. Usually with the changes of the setup, normally you’d feel some kind of reaction, but it doesn’t [feel that way], so something is just really off.”

A key factor in Red Bull’s recent form is an understanding of how to improve the car through a weekend and getting the RB21 to respond to changes. Without that, Verstappen and Red Bull are facing a familiar scenario of having to take significant setup gambles to try and get the car to come alive.

Lining up 16th and with no realistic prospect of moving forward with the machinery at his disposal, Red Bull could well be set to take the car out of parc ferme and start from the pit lane, allowing the team to completely change the setup and specifications of components once again in search of answers. That would also provide the opportunity to take a new power unit – something the team was trying to avoid but admitted would come with risk across the final three rounds – for little penalty.

It’s a Hail Mary, but Verstappen knows his championship hopes are set to all but disappear as it stands.

“Where we are starting, that’s not going to work. With these kind of performances, I mean, forget about it,” he said of his title chances.

With a championship to try and keep alive heading to Las Vegas to kick off the final triple header, Verstappen and Red Bull have nothing to lose by gambling again overnight, but on this weekend’s showing so far, the odds are stacked against them.