Verstappen: Red Bull "Not Extraordinary" as He Qualifies Sixth

Max Verstappen qualified sixth for the Qatar F1 Sprint, expressing doubts over Red Bull’s performance, describing the car as “not extraordinary.”

Max Verstappen qualified sixth for the Qatar F1 Sprint at Losail. The Red Bull driver was outpaced by the McLaren, Ferrari, and George Russell’s Mercedes. He lamented a lack of performance and expressed limited optimism for the rest of the weekend.

“I don’t have the pace, to be honest, it’s just slow. I don’t have the balance to attack the entry and mid-corner. The car is a bit off, making things really difficult here. The high-speed corners are fine, but the rest isn’t, and that makes pushing hard difficult,” Verstappen said.

“I think sixth is more or less where we should be, maybe even seventh. But of course, that’s not where you want to be. In the Sprint, it will be tough to fight with the cars around me given the balance I have.”

“As for the other sessions, we’ll see if we can improve the situation a little, but I don’t expect it to suddenly be turned upside down and work. It hasn’t been extraordinary.”

Sergio Pérez suffered another SQ1 exit, and the Mexican blamed several factors for the disappointing result: “Unfortunately, we went out a bit late. We had an issue with one of the anti-roll bars, and then, for my last run, we were all trying to create gaps.”

“Then Charles arrived, and we fought into Turn 1, losing a few tenths, enough to be eliminated. It’s a shame because I felt we had really made progress with the car between Free Practice and qualifying; we had much more potential.”