DOHA: Five days after enjoying a title party in Las Vegas, Max Verstappen was brought back to earth on Friday when he qualified sixth for Saturday’s sprint race at the Qatar Formula One Grand Prix. The newly-crowned four-time world champion said he lacked pace in his Red Bull and felt that sixth or seventh was where he deserved to be on current form.

“Just no pace,” he said. “It was slow and we had no balance to allow me to attack. The car is off in mid-corner. It’s okay at very high speed, but for the rest it is not okay and I just can’t push. “Let’s see if we can improve it a bit for the main qualifying tomorrow, but I don’t expect much. It’s not been amazing.”

Lando Norris took pole position for McLaren ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell and his team-mate Oscar Piastri with the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc fourth and fifth. Verstappen’s under-pressure Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez was eliminated from the first part of sprint qualifying leaving the team with little hope of reviving their defence of the constructors’ title as McLaren appear to be heading for their first triumph since 1998.

“We left it a bit late as we had an issue with an anti-roll bar and on my final lap Charles (Leclerc) came and we had a fight at Turn One,” said Perez. “I lost a couple of tenths there and it was a shame.” Team boss Christian Horner said Red Bull’s race pace was “reasonable” but added that starting from sixth was a problem because it can be difficult to overtake on the Losail International Circuit

“We need to find some performance,” he said. “We were running laps in qualifying to get the tyres up to temperature.” He added that he was relieved to see Verstappen arrive in Qatar after his partying in Las Vegas. “Winning the title in Vegas was a good thing and a bad thing!” he said. “I expected him to go missing, but he turned up here in time.”

Horner said he had been to the celebration party but left early to ensure he flew back to Britain to be in his office the following morning. Verstappen, by contrast, was still enjoying his party at breakfast time as his boss flew home. – AFP