Max Verstappen furious after Qatar sprint qualifying: “Too much bouncing – you can’t drive like this”. Max Verstappen finished sixth in the Qatar GP Sprint.

Max Verstappen could only manage sixth place in the Qatar GP Sprint qualifying, highlighting issues with bouncing and unstable balance in his Red Bull RB21. The team will need to make key adjustments before the main race to prevent losing valuable points to Lando Norris.

“Too much bouncing! This car is impossible to drive,” Verstappen exclaimed during the Sprint qualifying session. The four-time world champion struggled to find the right feel with the car on both medium and soft tires. Onboard footage showed the RB21 behaving nervously, with a car that seemed perhaps too focused on front-end grip.

During his final flying lap, Verstappen went off track, likely damaging the floor of the car, forcing him into a recovery mission in tomorrow’s Sprint race. Exiting the car visibly frustrated, he explained in post-session interviews that he would need to simply survive the Sprint while waiting to make further adjustments ahead of the main qualifying.

Yuki Tsunoda ahead of Max Verstappen

Another surprising element was Yuki Tsunoda qualifying ahead of Verstappen. Since joining Red Bull, this had never happened. While Yuki Tsunoda’s performance may bring a smile to the engineers in Milton Keynes, there is another side of the garage that will need to act quickly to give the reigning world champion a chance to stay in the championship fight.

Max Verstappen on surviving the Sprint

“Not great today. From the first lap, I was struggling with bouncing. On top of that, understeer would turn into oversteer on corner exit, which is not ideal if you want to go fast. We tried changing steering and car setup, but obviously, it didn’t have the desired effect,” Max Verstappen said in post-qualifying interviews.

“With this balance, I won’t have much fun tomorrow. We’ll have to survive and look for something different for qualifying,” he added. Maximizing position gains in tomorrow’s Sprint will be crucial to avoid losing points to Lando Norris. The RB21 clearly needs adjustments to perform properly. The encouraging sign is that Verstappen faced a similar situation in Brazil, where the engineers managed to turn things around and deliver a podium finish.

With only one race weekend left after Qatar, time is running out for Red Bull to give their champion a car he can actually fight with.