Verstappen left fuming over ‘just shit’ RB21 in Sprint qualifying

Max Verstappen cut an unusually exasperated figure under the Lusail floodlights on Friday, blasting his Red Bull’s behaviour in Sprint Qualifying and conceding that sixth on the grid was the best he could scrape from a car that was a handful.

The championship contender – chasing down a 24-point deficit to Lando Norris – was even outpaced by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda for the first time in equal machinery, and the Dutchman made no effort to hide why.

The RB21 hammered him around the high-speed Qatar circuit, leaving him wrestling a car that simply wouldn’t stay planted.

Verstappen’s fury poured over team radio. The session opened with a crackle of frustration as he reported the car was “bouncing around like crazy,” swiftly followed by the blunt verdict that “it is just shit”.

Things deteriorated further in SQ3, where an uncharacteristic wide moment on his first lap capped off the increasingly fraught run.

His temper flared again: The “f***ing car is bouncing like an idiot,” he snapped, summing up a qualifying hour he will want to forget.

After climbing out of the cockpit, Verstappen painted a picture of an RB21 that shifted between extremes from corner to corner.

“Yeah, not good from the first lap,” he said. “Just a really bad bouncing and a very aggressive understeer that would shift into oversteer in high-speed.

“So yeah, just not what you want to go fast. So then you’re locked in and we tried to, of course, change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked. So yeah, that made it quite tricky.”

Searching For Answers Ahead Saturday

Red Bull attempted tweaks between SQ2 and SQ3, but Verstappen admitted the fixes fell flat. Asked what the team had modified, he kept his cards close to his chest, saying only that it was a “few things”, before adding: “It clearly wasn’t working well in qualifying, so that’s something that we need to understand.”

With the Sprint looming, Verstappen warned that expectations should be muted – and that the 19-lap dash might serve more as a diagnostic exercise than an attacking opportunity.

“Yeah, but with this balance, tomorrow in the Sprint at least, it will not be a lot of fun,” he said.

“So it will be more about just trying to survive, I guess, and then make some changes going into qualifying.”

For a driver used to operating in a razor-sharp performance window, Friday in Qatar delivered something entirely different: a bumpy, bruising reminder that even the most dominant forces in Formula 1 can find themselves knocked off rhythm.

Qatar Grand Prix - Sprint Qualifying results

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