Red Bull ‘threw the kitchen sink’ at car before Max Verstappen pole

Christian Horner says Red Bull “pretty much threw the kitchen sink” at Max Verstappen’s car set-up before he claimed pole position at the F1 Qatar Grand Prix.

The four-time world champion snatched his first pole position in five months - since the Austrian Grand Prix in June - after pipping Mercedes’ George Russell to the fastest time by 0.055s on his final lap of Q3.

It marked a remarkable performance turnaround from Red Bull, who started the weekend struggling for pace, with Verstappen only able to qualify sixth for the sprint race, before finishing eighth.

“It’s a great turnaround. I think the engineers and the team back in Milton Keynes have worked very hard,” Red Bull team principal Horner told Sky.

“They’ve got a good set-up on the car. Max has immediately felt [more confident] - his first comment was that it feels better. And then he’s just gone out and delivered in the most spectacular way.

“We pretty much threw the kitchen sink at it and pretty much everything we could change, we did change.

“You never know if it’s all going to come together in the balance. And it did, and he was able to really nail it. We really struggled yesterday, in Turns 1, 2 and particularly the last turn, a little bit at seven as well. And those corners suddenly came alive for us.

“That last lap, it was neck and neck with George and he nailed that last corner, and it was just good enough.”

Switch to ‘aggressive’ set off pays off

After securing his ninth pole of the season, Verstappen admitted he “didn’t expect” the set-up changes to his RB20 would result in such a competitive showing.

“I didn't expect that,” Verstappen conceded. “But well done to the team to give me a car that feels a bit more connected. And once the car is a bit more together, you can push harder and it felt a lot better out there in qualifying for me.

“We did change a bit on the car, but I never thought it would make such a swing in performance. So that's promising. I hope it also lasts more in the race.

“I don't know that yet, but it just felt already a lot more stable over one lap, and that's exactly what we need. It's going to be a tough race physically, but I think also mainly on the tyres, just making sure that you're good on them.

“The front left around here gets eaten up quite a lot, so it's all about managing that tomorrow, but I hope that with the setup that we have on the car now, it will be a bit better.”

Asked if Red Bull had experimented with anything specific to turn things around, Verstappen replied: “Already a step in a direction, and I think then we went a bit more aggressive on it.”