Photo Credit: Red Bull Content Pool
Max Verstappen qualified in P3 for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, but will start in P2 due to Carlos Sainz’s penalty for component changes due to his headline dominated FP1 incident with a manhole cover.
The RB19 of in the hands of Verstappen wasn’t as on rails as it usually is and the Dutchman really had to fight his way through qualifying, even going slower on his second run in Q3, ultimately abandoning that run.
Clocking up a 1:33.104 and being 4 tenths of a second to the Ferrari of Leclerc is a sizeable gap, and Verstappen admits that they just didn’t have the ultimate one lap pace.
“The whole weekend really we were not strong enough over one lap and so no real surprise there, and then in qualifying I tried to do the best I can, I dropped the rear wing also so it took a bit of time to get into a rhythm, but ya we were just too slow.”
Verstappen though was happy with the drivability and balance of his Red Bull and overall was in a relaxed mood post qualifying.
“My lap in Q3 — I was actually quite happy with it. I improved quite a bit from Q2 and honestly there was not much more in it, I don’t think there was any corner where I lost time to my Q2 lap, I improved also in every corner a little bit and it felt OK, not good enough but felt Ok,” explained Verstappen.
Thinking ahead to tomorrow and Verstappen is wary of the implications that may arise from starting on the dirty side of the grid and is hoping not to lose positions as a result.
“I think it’s a bit like Austin when we had the first race there, it was also very bad on the inside there, so that’s not ideal, I was actually hoping to be P4 because then I would have been promoted to P3, but anyway that’s how it goes, we’ll just deal with it. The run to turn one isn’t too bad but if we have a bad start we can still lose a lot of positions, so we’ll work on that for tomorrow.”
Finally the 3-time World Champion was confident about his race pace and in particular keeping his tyres in shape to fight for victory. The Red Bull has been great on it’s tyres in race trim, and is hoping this will be their Vegas trump card tomorrow.
“Obviously tomorrow is again very different, it’s not about the one lap performance it’s about keeping your tyres alive, there is a lot of graining on the tyres and hopefully we have an advantage there, at least a chance to fight. Yesterday the long runs looked good so hopefully tomorrow that will be the same,” concluded Verstappen.
