A despondent Max Verstappen labelled his Red Bull car "undriveable" after the four-time world champion qualified a lowly 11th for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.
The Dutchman, who has won at Suzuka for the past four years, dropped out in Q2 in another qualifying nightmare to compound a difficult start to the season.
He crashed out in Q3 in the season-opener in Australia and has consistently railed against new Formula One regulations that see a 50-50 split between conventional and electrical power.
"The car never turns mid-corner, but at the same time this weekend, it's just oversteering a lot on entry. It's really difficult, unpredictable," Verstappen, who took pole last year with a track-record lap time, told Sky Sports F1.
"We thought we'd fixed it a little bit in FP3 (third practice), I mean there was still a lot of understeer in the car, but now in qualifying for me it was again undriveable, so that's something that we need to look at."
Verstappen, who finished sixth in Melbourne and retired from the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago, added: "We have problems that I cannot explain in detail here.
"I think in qualifying it just came back to a point where it became undriveable."
Verstappen, 28, was involved in a public confrontation on Thursday when he ejected a reporter from his news conference.