Verstappen blasts F1 rivals after missing final Chinese GP Q3 run

Red Bull driver Verstappen was one of a host of drivers preparing for a run in the dying moments of the session, but missed out on crossing the line in time by less than two seconds when a number of drivers overtook him before the final corner and backed him up.

Sebastian Vettel passed him around the outside of the Turn 14 hairpin, before Renault duo Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo also shot past him on the run to the final left hander.

Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase urged him to speed up but it was too late, which prompted a rant from the Dutch driver - who said over his team radio: "They are such wankers, honestly. Everybody just lining up and they are just fucking it up.

"You're just trying to be nice but everybody's just fucking it up."

Speaking to Dutch television channel Ziggo Sport after the session, Verstappen - who will start Sunday's race fifth - claimed the other drivers had broken a code of conduct of staying in order on their outlaps.

"We were just staying neatly behind each other, but at a certain point Vettel passed me and the two Renaults as well," he said.

"So they fucked up my entire build up, while there is an unwritten rule that you just follow each other.

"But whatever. From now on in qualifying I'm going to fuck them up as well."

Vettel said he had no choice but to overtake other cars if he was going to make it across the line for his final Q3 lap.

"We all left for the same spot and, if you are at the end of the train as I was, it was quite difficult," said Vettel, who qualified third.

"When the team told me we only had 10 seconds margin to cross the line in time to make another attempt, I had to think of something.

"I don't know if others were not told.

"If everyone would have sped up the way I did then we would have all made it, but I obviously prioritised at that point to make the lap.

"It felt like the others were not aware."

Verstappen was not the only driver to miss out on a final run, with Pierre Gasly finding himself trapped behind his Red Bull team-mate coming out of the final corner.

Haas appeared to miscalculate the amount of time it had in hand to get across the line, and Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen also failed to get a final lap in.