The newly crowned 4-time world champion started the Sprint from P6 but fell to P9 by the end of the first lap after having a poor start. He did manage to overtake Pierre Gasly’s Alpine however and ended the day with a single point in P8.

But Max’s bigger concerns were the pace of his car, which he said once he’d passed Gasly was not quick enough to catch the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg. Looking at the lap times of Verstappen and Hulkenberg shows that they had fairly even pace over the Sprint, differing by just 0.039s on average.

Comparing the telemetry from one of their closer lap times, lap 9, where Verstappen did 1:26.029 and Hulkenberg did 1:25.938 shows that while they’re evenly matched through sector 1, sector 2 is where the Haas had an advantage. Hulkenberg’s sector 2 time was 0.311s faster than Verstappen’s, and despite a quicker sector 3 on Verstappen’s side, it’s not enough to claw back the pace advantage from Hulkenberg. With this pendulum swinging over the 19 laps, it becomes clear to see that Verstappen’s pace was in line with the Haas’s.

For Hulkenberg this was “a competitive race” with “strong and solid” pace, but for Verstappen changes need to be made between the Sprint and Qualifying for his weekend to turn around. Even with these changes however, Max isn’t confident that the root of the problem can be addressed; “We can change some things, but not the root of the problem. We’re going to adjust some things, but I don’t expect any miracles.”

The cooler temperatures in Qatar compared to last year appear to be posing a problem for the RB20 and how it treats the Pirelli tyres, resulting in a lack of grip. “Honestly I was just sliding everywhere – having a lot of weird moments. And that’s been happening the whole weekend already,” Max said.

“Just no balance on entry, no balance in the corner. Everything is the extreme version of itself. Throughout the race that was also my problem, I couldn’t even catch Nico (Hulkenberg), really.”