Red Bull “threw away the kitchen sink” when it came to vehicle set-up for Verstappen’s Qatar pole.

Christian Horner believes Red Bull have “messed up the kitchen sink” in improving their RB20 Formula 1 car in preparation for qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix, which helped Max Verstappen secure pole position.

Verstappen praised the team for the turnaround after only finishing sixth on the grid in the sprint race, in which he finished eighth after a poor first lap.

This prompted Red Bull to go all out in the post-sprint set-up, and Verstappen immediately felt an improvement in balance – an improvement he had dismissed as “terrible” earlier in the day.

Speaking to Sky F1, Horner said that Red Bull changed everything in its power to get the tires to grip in colder conditions, which it ultimately succeeded in doing as Verstappen moved ahead of George Russell up the order.

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

“They have a good set-up of the car, Max immediately felt (safer) – his first comment was that it felt better. And then he just went out and delivered in the most spectacular way.”

“We pretty much threw the kitchen sink in the air; Pretty much everything that could be changed, we changed.”

“You never know if everything will come together in the end. And he did, and he could actually do it. We had big problems yesterday, Turn 1, Turn 2 and especially the last corner; a little at seven.” And these corners suddenly came alive for us.

“On the last lap George was neck and neck as George went into the last corner and he took the last corner and it was just good enough.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Verstappen explained that the “connectedness” of his car gave him the confidence to push harder in qualifying and that he did not expect such progress compared to the previous sprint sessions.

He pointed out that the race would be a completely new challenge and hopes that the new set-up would allow him to mitigate wear on the left front tire in Qatar’s numerous large radius corners.

“I didn’t expect that. Congratulations to the team for giving me a car that feels a little better. Once the car fits together a little better, you can push harder and it felt a lot better in qualifying.” Me.

“We made a few changes to the car, but I never thought the performance would increase so much. So that’s promising. I hope it lasts longer in the race too.”

“I don’t know yet, but it just felt a lot more stable over a lap and that’s exactly what we need. It’s going to be a tough race physically, but I also think it’s all about the tires to make sure that happens. “You’re good at it.

“The front left part is under quite a lot of stress here. It’s important to get this under control tomorrow. I hope that things will get a little better with the setup we have on the car now.”

Photos from the Qatar GP sprint race and qualifying