Reigning world champion Max Verstappen fears Saturday’s sprint race in Qatar will be about “trying to survive” after going with the wrong set-up direction on his Red Bull.
In qualifying Verstappen started reporting crippling bouncing issues through the second sprint qualifying segment on the medium tyres, and in the final shoot-out on softs those woes appeared to only get worse.
Having understeered off the high-downforce Losail track on his first flying lap, Verstappen only managed sixth on his second attempt, qualifying behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda for the first time and being nearly half a second adrift of sprint polesitter Oscar Piastri in the McLaren.
“Not good from the first lap, just a really bad bouncing and a very aggressive understeer that would shift into oversteer in high speed,” four-time world champion Verstappen said. “So not what you want to go fast. Then you’re locked in and we tried to, of course, change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked. So that made it quite tricky.”
As teams cannot make set-up changes before Saturday afternoon’s 19-lap sprint under parc ferme rules, Verstappen believes all he will be able to do is just to hang on and bring the car home where he qualified.
“With this balance tomorrow in the sprint, it will not be a lot of fun,” he said. “So it will be more about just trying to survive, I guess, and then make some changes going into qualifying.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Dom Gibbons / LAT Images via Getty Images
With Verstappen trailing championship leader Lando Norris by 24 points and being level with sprint polesitter Piastri, not being able to gain positions from sixth on the grid would be a dent to Verstappen’s long-shot title hopes, even if F1’s sprint races only pay one point per position in the top eight.
According to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, Verstappen’s main problem was that the set-up direction his side of the garage chose didn’t work out on the soft tyres, although the Dutchman’s initial struggles on the mediums partially contradict that theory.
“We didn’t have bouncing on the medium tyre, so we have to find the reason why it happened,” Marko said, before going into more detail with Austrian broadcaster ORF.
“We have a problem with the soft tyres. On the medium we were in the game, but on the soft tyre – don’t ask,” Marko added.
“I honestly can’t even remember the last time a team-mate beat Max. And Yuki alone lost a tenth in Turn 1. So for Max, the changes were certainly no advantage when it came to soft tyre performance.
“They have two different approaches. Yuki needs a stable rear-end. Max needs a sharp front-end that really bites. And the changes were made in that direction. And apparently it worked better for Yuki than it did for Max.
“Thank God it’s only the sprint. The main thing is that we can sort it out somehow for the main race.”
Additional reporting by Ronald Vording
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