Red Bull Racing wouldn’t have expected Max Verstappen to briefly be on pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix.
However, Red Bull are all too aware that Max Verstappen is capable of achieving what many would never expect from him.
Verstappen’s performance in Sao Paulo was incredible and virtually guaranteed his fourth world championship.
The Qatar Grand Prix wasn’t expected to be particularly positive for Red Bull, with McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari all expected to have an advantage over them.
That appeared to be the case in the Sprint Race when Verstappen qualified and finished sixth.
However, the Dutchman’s fortunes improved in qualifying ahead of Sunday’s Grand Prix.
He advanced to Q3 with relative ease and was joined by teammate Sergio Perez after a torrid start to his weekend.
Verstappen then set the fastest time of the session and speaking on Channel 4, former driver David Coulthard shared what team principal Christian Horner told him after the session about why Verstappen was suddenly so quick.
Christian Horner shares why Max Verstappen was much quicker during Qatar Grand Prix qualifying
Talking about Verstappen’s performance in qualifying, Coulthard said: “I find it just remarkable as you remember well prior to qualifying, I sort of parked Red Bull as not even being in the hunt.
“Having a quick chat with Christian just off the back of that session, he said they made some adjustments, loaded up the car and then suddenly it’s come into a window where he’s able to exploit his talent and deliver in what was an incredibly close qualifying session.
“So, I imagine George Russell must be frustrated. He’s been the most consistent man throughout the two qualifying sessions we’ve had here.
“[He’s] still very much in the hunt for the Grand Prix victory because this is only part of the story.”
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Unfortunately, Verstappen’s joy at securing pole position was short-lived.
The 27-year-old was handed an unprecedented one-place grid penalty for driving too slowly on his cooldown lap.
Verstappen was adjudged to have blocked George Russell on his cooldown lap, although the Mercedes driver was going significantly quicker.
Russell believed that the speed he lost cost him the necessary tyre warm-up needed to make up the 0.055 seconds that he missed out on pole position by.
Christian Horner questions Sergio Perez during the Qatar Grand Prix
While Helmut Marko thinks Red Bull have fixed their Achilles’ heel, that only appears to have benefitted Verstappen.
Perez will start Sunday’s race from ninth after a Q1 exit in Sprint qualifying and being jumped by Franco Colapinto coming out of the pit lane.
Horner admitted to Sky Sports F1 that he was confused by Perez’s slow start to the Sprint Race and said: “I don’t know, to be honest. I need to have a chat with him about it.
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“It looked like he just misjudged it, but when the light goes out, you’re supposed to go.
“We got a bit of data out of it. There was no chance we were going to score any points, so we may as well use that session to get something out of it.
“So we changed the wing, we tried something a bit different, which gives us and the engineers some good information for the qualifying a little bit later.”
The problem for Red Bull is that with two races to go, they shouldn’t be in a position where one of their drivers is being sacrificed because there’s no chance that he can score points.
McLaren and Ferrari are in a two-horse race for the Constructors’ Championship but considering Verstappen’s lead in the driver’s standings, it’s remarkable that they’re not also in the conversation.
