Max Verstappen qualified sixth for the Qatar F1 Sprint at Losail. The Red Bull driver was beaten by the McLarens and Ferraris, as well as the Mercedes of George Russell. He deplores a lack of performance and is not very optimistic for the rest of the weekend.
“I don't have any pace to be honest, it's just slow. I don't really have the balance to attack on entry and mid-corner. The car is a little out of tune, which makes the really tough stuff here Very high speed is okay, but everything else is not and that makes it hard to push.” Verstappen said.
“I think sixth place is more or less where we should be, maybe even seventh actually. But of course, that's not where you want to be. In the Sprint it will be difficult to fight with the cars around me with the balance I have in the car.”
“For the other qualifiers we'll see if we can improve the situation a bit, but I don't expect it to suddenly be turned upside down and make it work. It hasn't been great.”
Sergio Pérez suffered another elimination in SQ1, and the Mexican blames several things for this umpteenth poor performance: “Unfortunately we came out a little late. We had a problem with one of the anti-roll bars, and then going into my last lap we were all pulling gaps.”
“Then Charles came, we were fighting in Turn 1, and we lost a few tenths, enough to be eliminated. It's a shame because I felt like we really improved with the car between Practices Free and qualifying, we had a lot more potential.”
