Verstappen: “Rally car” Red Bull was undriveable in Qatar GP sprint

Four-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen rued his “terrible” balance through the Qatar Grand Prix sprint and felt his Red Bull felt more like a rally car during the 19-lap race.

The Dutchman fell to ninth on the opening lap after being overtaken by a fast-starting Lewis Hamilton off the line, and then his wide lines through the opening corners left him open to passes from Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly.

Verstappen ultimately re-passed Gasly for eighth, earning the final point available in the Saturday race, but could not get within touching distance of Hulkenberg.

Speaking about his low-key race, Verstappen stated that his balance was out of the window and that he particularly struggled at the start with cold tyres.

“I just had no grip. The balance is terrible. On cold tyres you suffer even more from that. It felt like a rally car,” Verstappen told Viaplay.

“I think I would have been better off competing with my father [Jos] at Spa in a rally – we would have had a better chance of being competitive over there, I think. It’s really terrible, it was undriveable.

“We can change a lot of things [before qualifying], but we can’t fix the problem. I don’t know. We will change some things, but I don’t expect miracles.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner reckoned that the team had a “mountain to climb” to find competitiveness in qualifying and the grand prix on Sunday, acknowledging that the tyres couldn’t fire up.

He told Sky that the team at least had data to work with on Sergio Perez’s car, after the team started the beleaguered Mexican from the pitlane and then changed his front wing mid-race.

“It’s hugely unusual for [Verstappen]. You can see we just couldn’t fire up the tyres. By the time the tyres did get going, the front pack had gone,” Horner said to Sky F1.

“We’ve got some work to do. We managed to get a bit of data off Checo’s car with the changes we made, taking it out of parc ferme. Hopefully that will help this afternoon, but we’ve got a bit of a mountain to climb.

“You can turn things around. I mean, that’s the joy now that the cars come out of parc ferme, that we can change the car.

“I think we know some areas that we can make changes, so let’s see if we’ve got another chance in another couple of hours.”

Photos from Qatar GP Sprint Race