Max Verstappen bid for fifth title suffers setback

Max Verstappen’s quest for a fifth drivers’ world title suffered a setback on Friday when he was out-qualified by a Red Bull team-mate for the first time in 440 days.

The Dutchman will start sixth in Saturday’s sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda on the third row.

The last time Verstappen, who is level with Oscar Piastri and 24 points adrift of Lando Norris in the championship, was outpaced in any qualifying session was at the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when he was beaten by Sergio Perez.

Tsunoda, widely expected to be dropped by Red Bull at the end of this year, was 0.009 seconds faster than Verstappen, who spent most of the sprint qualifying session complaining about the balance and performance of his car.

“Not good,” was his verdict on the session. “From the first lap, it was really bad bouncing and with aggressive understeer, which would shift into oversteer at high speeds. Just not what you want!”

“We were locked in (to the set-up), and of course, we tried to change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked and made it tricky.”

He said he had changed his set-up after the earlier sole practice session at the high-grip but dusty high-speed Lusail International Circuit, but added that he and the team needed to understand the problems.

“It wasn’t working well in qualifying, so that’s something we need to understand,” he added.

“With this balance, in the sprint at least, it will not be a lot of fun. It will be more about trying to survive, I guess, and then make some changes going into qualifying (for Sunday’s race).”

Max Verstappen made clear before the weekend’s action began that he had only an outside chance to take the title and was relying on perfect results and more self-inflicted problems for his rivals after McLaren’s double disqualification last weekend in Las Vegas.