Verstappen concedes he has to be ‘realistic’ about Red Bull’s limitations in Miami as he tries to 'make the best of it'

Max Verstappen believes he has to be “realistic” regarding Red Bull’s limitations and “make the best of it” after fighting his way to fourth in Sprint Qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix.

Fresh from becoming a father for the first time, with the Dutchman missing Thursday's media day as a result, the reigning World Champion was thrust into what proved to be a hotly-contested Sprint Qualifying session at the Miami International Autodrome.

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Despite struggling with understeer in the low speed corners, Verstappen was able to wrestle his RB21 to fourth on the grid for Saturday’s Sprint, 0.255s adrift of polesitter Kimi Antonelli.

“I think what we also did in Q3 was also good, the tyres are holding on quite well but unfortunately, already from FP1, I’m just struggling with a lot of understeer in the car and around here with all the low speed corners you just lose quite a bit of lap time,” said Verstappen following the Sprint Qualifying session.

“I think you can see in the first sector we are quite competitive because that is where the high speed corners are, but as soon as you get to the low speed [corners] we lack quite a bit of grip.

“But P4 is alright. Of course it is not where I want to be but you have to be a bit realistic with the limitations that we have at the moment and I think it was still quite close.”

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Verstappen admitted it is difficult to know if he will be able to take the fight to front runners in Saturday’s 19-lap Sprint due to a lack of long run data, given teams have contested only one practice session this weekend.

“Honestly it is very difficult to say [if we can fight the front runners] in the Sprint weekend as there is no real proper data in long runs because you don’t know what others are doing with fuel loads and stuff," he added.

“But just going off my own feeling, balance-wise with the car, I think it will be tough with the heat. Like I said, we know our limitations, so we have to try and make the best of it.”

Verstappen’s team mate Yuki Tsunoda will start the race from 18th after a timing miscalculation prevented the Japanese driver from completing a final flying lap run in SQ1.