The championship leader took his first pole since the Imola GP with a brilliant performance, overturning his earlier practice woes.
The home round for his team hadn’t started in the best way as Verstappen had stopped on the pit straight due to a sensor issue, but ultimately he was able to return on track right after the green flag was shown.
He then went on to lead all Sprint qualifying segments, besting Spanish GP pole sitter Lando Norris by less than a tenth to secure his eight pole of the season across Sprints and standard qualifying sessions.
The Dutchman was pretty pleased with his strong performance.
“It was a positive day, to be honest. I’m happy. We started the day well, the car was really in a good window. [There was] the niggle with the sensor, but we fixed that quickly.”
He went on to recall the session itself, mentioning that there’s still plenty of work ahead with the competition right on his tail.
The three-time World Champion is also aware the 24-lap contest is key to learning about who will be very quick in the Grand Prix itself on Sunday.
“Then heading into qualifying, I think the car was pretty strong. I could push. Of course there will always be areas where we can do better, so we’ll look at that tonight.
“But, yeah, definitely a good start to the weekend. Yeah, at the end of the day when really everyone is pushing flat-out, they are again behind me, so for sure they’re quick as well.
“We seem quick in the high-speed, which of course is nice around here. Hopefully we can keep that going also tomorrow, but of course the Sprint will give us an early indication of how the pace will be in the race for every car, so I’m looking forward to that.”
The day wasn’t as positive as his for teammate Sergio Pérez, who on his only SQ3 attempt was stuck behind the much slower Alpine of Esteban Ocon. The situation affected his lap, which ended up being good enough only for P7.
The Mexican driver was thus pretty disappointed with his day as they desperately tried to make the line as time was tight.
Pérez had looked a bit closer to Verstappen on Friday concerning the gap, although a third row start was probably the maximum on the basis of the gaps in SQ3.
“We were making good progress, my [SQ2] lap one wasn’t ideal, I went deep into Turn 3, so I went again and I was finding the time. But I think we were in the mix today.
“Unfortunately I don’t know what Esteban [Ocon] was doing there, whether he apparently had to drive really slowly. I did my final lap within half a second from him, and basically there was no chance.”
Pérez’s last pole position was at the 2023 Miami round, but he’ll have another chance to fight for the top spot tomorrow.
“It’s a shame because I think we [had] a more promising pace today, so unfortunately we were not able to maximise it today.”
Asked if he believes that tomorrow he will be able to fight for a podium finish, or even the Sprint race win, the former Racing Point is hopeful of beating the Mercedes cars and Carlos Sainz.
“Yes, definitely. I think we should have been in the mix today, but for circumstances out of our control we didn’t end up where we needed to be, and I’m confident that tomorrow will be a better day.”
