Max finishes sixth in sprint qualifying Qatar: 'Quite tricky'

Published on 28 November 2025 by Florence Cobben

Max Verstappen has finished the sprint qualifying of the Qatar Grand Prix in sixth. The Dutchman, just like in training, suffered from serious bounce on his RB21 car. At the start of the last run of the session, the four-time world champion went wide, leaving him with a damaged underside and just one chance at putting down a lap time. Ultimately, he got no higher than sixth, behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Oscar Piastri was the fastest man of the sprint qualifying, followed by George Russell. Lando Norris took third place, with Fernando Alonso just behind.

How was the session for Max? “Not good. From the first lap just really bad bouncing and very aggressive understeer that would shift into oversteer in high speed. So, yeah, just not what you want. You want to go faster.” Despite the car's terrible handling, Max clarified that the team tried to make some adjustments to the car: “We tried to of course change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked, which made it quite tricky.”

After the first free practice a lot of changes were made to the car, but this didn’t translate into better performance during qualifying. “We changed a few things, but it clearly wasn’t working in qualifying. This is something we need to understand.” Looking ahead to the sprint race, Max is not optimisitc about the balance on the car: “With this balance tomorrow in the sprint at least, it will not be a lot of fun. It will more be about trying to survive, I guess, and make some changes going into qualifying (for the race)”.

Circumstances are cooler at the start of sprint qualifying than usual: 22 degrees, with track temperature hovering around 26 degrees. Max was first out of the pit lane, setting a benchmark time of 1:22.258 on his first lap. Although this was soon bettered by Norris, Piastri, and Hadjar, he responded on his second run by improving his own time to a 1:21.494.

Both McLarens push Max back to P3, with Piastri leading. As track conditions continued to improve, Alonso briefly seizes the top spot, but Max responds in the closing moments of SQ1 by jumping to first place with a time of 1:21.172. A surprise early exit saw Hamilton eliminated alongside Stroll, Lawson, Gasly, and Colapinto. As SQ1 draws to a close, the top three are Max, Alonso and Piastri. Notably, the stewards investigated but took no action on two separate impeding incidents involving Max and Norris.

Max Verstappen begins SQ2 with a 1:21.295, good enough for P4. However, he again reports bouncing issues with his car, echoing his complaints from FP1. On his next run, he improves to a 1:21.036, moving up to P3. Kimi Antonelli just squeezes his way through to SQ3 when Hadjar’s time is disqualified for exceeding track limits. Bearman, Bortoleto, Hülkenberg and Ocon also don’t make it to the final showdown. The three fastest cars of SQ2 are Norris, Piastri and Verstappen. 

Disaster strikes in the last session when Max tries a fast lap and goes wide, sustaining damage to his floor and tyres. He has to abort his lap, complaining via the radio that the car bounces everywhere. With just a few minutes on the clock, both McLarens are leading the grid. Max is yet to set a time and only has one chance. Limited to one final run, he could only manage sixth place, slotting in behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Russell briefly takes the quickest time, but it’s not long before Piastri is crowned this session’s fastest man. Norris finishes third. 

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Results sprint qualifying Qatar: