Christian Horner was spotted shaking his head as he spoke to Helmut Marko in the Red Bull garage following two nightmare practice sessions ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Austrian team were well off the pace in both sessions, with Max Verstappen clocking slower times than the likes of Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton and McLaren ace Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen ended FP1 with the fifth fastest time after taking multiple trips into the gravel and only managed to produce the seventh quickest lap during FP2. Red Bull switched their set-up between the sessions but couldn’t find the answer and will need to significantly improve their offering if Verstappen is to claim his fifth Grand Prix victory of the season on Sunday.

Red Bull chief Horner wandered back into the garage following Verstappen’s underwhelming showing as he entered into a discussion with team advisor Marko and their stand-in race engineer Tom Hart. And the Englishman was clearly bothered by the events of the day as his head moved from side to side.

Verstappen was denied Grand Prix victory for just the second time of the season at the previous race in Miami as he finished behind race winner Lando Norris. And the Dutchman will be under pressure to get back to winning ways at Imola to prove he is still the man to beat this season.

“[It was] a difficult day,” Verstappen explained on Friday evening. “Just difficult to get a good balance and just not really feeling comfortable in the car. Moving around a lot - it’s very easy to lose the car and [there are] a few things that we have to look at. Because today it’s not comfortable. Also the long run was really bad. So definitely a few things that we have to improve if we want to be competitive tomorrow.”

Verstappen went on to claim that Saturday “can’t be worse than what we had today,” before adding: “We’ll look at a few things that we can do better for tomorrow but it looks a bit like the others took a bit of a step forward and, from our side, just a bad day.”

Verstappen also narrowly avoided a collision with Hamilton after the Silver Arrows driver failed to spot the champion was on a quick lap. And discussing that incident after FP2, Verstappen stated: “It’s not the first time. You try to of course always to stay calm about it. But I’ve been at the other end also.

“I don’t want to really talk about it too much because that’s not our issue. Today, we were just severely off the pace.”