Why did Max Verstappen term Red Bull ring 'the worst track' for track limits policing?

Max Verstappen feels the Red Bull is one of the worst tracks to police track limits in F1, as was on evidence during Friday's qualifying. The session on Friday saw a plethora of lap times up and down the grid get deleted because of track limit infringement.

The situation became so bad that even after Q2 had been concluded, viewers waited for five minutes to let the order sort itself out as multiple drivers got their laps canceled.

Max Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez was one of the drivers who fell foul of track limits, but he was not the only one. McLaren's Oscar Piastri suffered, and so did Alpine's Esteban Ocon and many others. In the end, the track limits kerfuffle did leave the fans and even the broadcasters somewhat confused about what the final order was.

Talking about the track limits, Max Verstappen admitted that this needed looking into at the Red Bull ring. During the post-qualifying press conference, he said:

"Yeah, I mean, it is, I think one of the worst tracks for it, with the track limits. Also, especially towards the end, the tyres are getting really hot so they're not as agile anymore as well compared to the beginning of the lap. But it's super hard to judge around here. You have all the compressions as well, where if you hit it slightly wrong, the car immediately drops away from you or understeers and then it's super easy to go over the white line."

He added:

"And I think today it looked very silly. It almost looked like we were amateurs out there, the amount of lap times that were getting deleted. And also, some of them were so marginal, where even we spoke about it in the briefing before that, when it's very marginal, it's impossible to judge if it's out or in, and they were still getting deleted. So I don't think it was a good look today."

Max Verstappen feels it's super tricky to keep the car within the white lines in Austria

Explaining further, Max Verstappen admitted that many could feel that it's not that big a deal to keep the car within track limits. However, by the looks of it, it's very tricky, especially if we look at the sheer volume of track limit infringements in the session. He said:

"Of course, people can say, ‘Yeah, well, then you just stay within the white lines’. Well, if it was that easy, then you can take my car and try it. But probably you won't even get up to speed in time. But yeah, it is super tricky. And I think today showed that. I think it's still not easy to have a clear rule about it, because on most tracks, it works really well."

Max Verstappen will start the race on Sunday in pole position and will be looking to win his fifth race in a row.