During the closing stages of Q2 at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Lance Stroll crashed at Turn 2, bringing out yellow flags just as Max Verstappen was on a flying lap.

Verstappen, already carrying a five-place grid penalty for Sunday's race at Interlagos, was pushing to secure a good position but had to slow down when he passed Stroll’s damaged Aston Martin at Turn 3.

With worsening track conditions and only a minute and a half left, Verstappen had no further chances to improve his time. Ultimately, he was pushed down to 12th by Charles Leclerc and Liam Lawson, marking an unexpected Q2 exit for the reigning world champion. 

Frustrated by the situation, Verstappen criticized the delay in bringing out the red flag, believing that if it had been shown earlier, his attendance in Q3 might have been secured.

“If a guy goes straight into the wall, it is a straight red,” the Dutchman told Sky after the session.

“I don't understand why you need to take 30, 40 seconds for a red flag to come out...”

However, it’s unclear if an earlier red flag would have changed his outcome. Leclerc crossed the line just seconds after the yellow flags appeared, making it difficult for race control to respond immediately, while Lawson crossed 34 seconds after. So even if the red flag had come sooner, Verstappen might only have held onto 11th, a position that wouldn’t have drastically altered his result.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, however, stands behind an opinion, that it was clearly a mistake from FIA.

“It’s not about letting cars finish laps or not - as soon as you have an accident like that, it should be an immediate red flag, because you've got a driver in the wall,” he told Sky F1.

“You’ve got cars coming through - you can't say, ‘well, we'll just wait for the others to finish their laps’. It doesn't work like that.

“But Lance Stroll wasn't trying to get that car going again. It was screwed. It hit the barrier hard. He was in the middle of middle of the track there at Turn 3, that’s a red flag.

“There's two elements to that. Obviously, we've fallen foul of it. If they red-flagged it immediately, Max would have been 10th. If they red-flagged it immediately, there's time for another lap.”

Verstappen's Q2 exit meant a double blow for Red Bull, as his teammate Sergio Perez also missed out on Q3, finishing 13th.

With an additional five-place grid penalty for a new engine, Verstappen is now set to start from 17th on the grid, although, potential penalties for cars that crashed in qualifying might push him a few places up.