Why are people ranting and bashing Max here? Some people have misquoted Max as saying, "the car was crap", which is not true.
Here are his quotes from the post qualifying interview and press conference.
Track interviews conducted by David Coulthard
Well, it’s the first time in the hybrid turbo era you’ve had a one-two, so congratulations on being part of that and good luck tomorrow. Max, I know you’re going to be disappointed with that. You’ve been the fastest man all the way through the various practice sessions and in the end, Daniel pulled the lap, so tell us about that final lap for you? Where did it slip away?
Max Verstappen: The whole qualifying was crap. Again, the same problems as FP2. Engine braking not like I want to, just rear-locking the car. We tried to make the best of it. I thought it was going to be enough with the problems we had but it’s still good to be second, so we’ll see tomorrow.
Well, we can feel your disappointment. You’re clearly not happy with the way everything is operating. Can you fix those problems for tomorrow?
MV: I’m not sure, but I’ll drive around them.
Press Conference
Definitely exciting. Well done Daniel. Max, we’ve just heard that Daniel’s first sector on that last run wasn’t what he thought was brilliant. Just talk us through your final run in Q3, because you were on pole after the first runs?
MV: It was just not good. I was struggling the whole qualifying, with the same problems I had in FP2, when I had a lot of rear locking, on the down-shifting and when I come off the throttle. Somehow the behaviour was not correct. So we couldn’t do anything throughout qualifying, so I just had to lock a lot of tools, go forward on the brake balance to try and stabilise the whole car. It’s not how you want to do qualifying, normally you go more aggressive and be more aggressive on all the tools. That’s it.
How will those issues affect your race pace tomorrow?
MV: We’ll find out. At the moment I don’t know.
It's not that he is lying, as we all saw the issues in Singapore qualifying and race where there were unusual gear shifts that were hampering him. I can't remember which race, but he complained of similar engine locking issues in another race. It is hardly surprising that such issues affect the confidence of a driver.
Horner mentioned in his interview that, "both had same cars", but nowhere touched upon the issues that Max explained. People have to wait for team coming out with an explanation of the problem OR denying that Max had problems. Until then, it would be unwise to simply throw words that suits a narrative that people prefer to see.