On the back of his dominant display at last Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, Max Verstappen endured a difficult time in the grid-deciding session for the Qatar F1 Sprint, ending up only sixth on Friday afternoon.
Although he looked competitive during the sole practice session in Qatar, the Dutchman, who still has a chance of securing his fifth title, struggled in sprint qualifying with bouncing and finishing P6.
“Today wasn’t great for us, from the first stint we just had really bad bouncing and aggressive understeer. This would also shift into oversteer in the high speed, which is not what you need to go faster and when you are locked in.
“Of course, we tried to change a few things on the wheel but it never really worked so that made it quite tricky. We made some other changes after FP1 but it didn’t make too much difference in Sprint Qualifying so that is something we need to understand.
“Tomorrow in the Sprint, with this balance, it will not be a lot of fun and we will need to make some changes going into Qualifying,” concluded Verstappen.
Yuki Tsunoda out-qualified Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen for the first time since he joined the Milton Keynes-based outfit ar Round 3.
Commenting on his best qualifying with Red Bull, Tsunoda added: “So far it has been a clean weekend for me and pretty smooth, there had been no major issues in FP1 and that gave me more confidence going into Sprint Qualifying.
“It is good that it’s been uneventful so far! We have to put it all together, there are three more sessions to go and these are especially important to the Team and Max, both sides of the garage are very focussed and we are all giving our maximum.
“I am happy with the car but there is still some work to do ahead of tomorrow to find those extra tenths but I am excited,” added the Japanese driver.