While last weekend in Las Vegas they were celebrating Max Verstappen’s fourth world title, the situation in Qatar seemed to have flipped. Red Bull disappointed during the shootout qualifying for the Sprint in Qatar, and team principal Christian Horner did not hide his astonishment.
The penultimate race of the season for the Milton Keynes team did not start in the best way. During the first and only free practice session, neither Verstappen nor Perez stood out with performances that were up to the level of the top teams.
At the end of qualifying, the world champion finished in sixth place with a time of 1:21.315, which put him three-tenths behind the top spot. His teammate, however, struggled much more. As is now customary, Checo failed to make it past Q1 and will start from 16th position.
Once again, the Mexican was around seven-tenths behind the number 1. To justify himself, Sergio Perez admitted that he had been slowed down by Charles Leclerc during his final lap. Christian Horner also commented on the situation after yesterday’s qualifying. “Checo desperately needs a result.”
“He’s had a horrible season since Monaco, so he needs to try to achieve something meaningful here or next weekend in Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it into SQ2; it’s frustrating to see him there. We’ll examine the data to see what we can adjust after the Sprint race.”
Looking at the car’s performance in Qatar, Horner was still very surprised. “To be honest, we thought the circuit would suit the car a bit better. I think the problem is the temperature is very low. We are having some difficulties with the tires.”
“Most of the time loss is in corners 1, 2, and the last one. We need to analyze this and understand what’s causing it. We are still fast on the straights, so maybe we can overtake there. We’ll take the data from all of this and analyze it for the Grand Prix qualifying.”
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