Max Verstappen says Red Bull extracted everything they could from his car despite missing out on pole position.
Lando Norris denied him by just two-thousandths of a second with his final lap in Q3 with Verstappen having to settle for a front row start.
Verstappen benefitted from a slipstream from team mate Sergio Perez along the pit straight at the start of his final flying lap. The world champion, who opportunistically used a tow from Nico Hulkenberg to claim pole position at Imola last month, said the team didn’t plan the move before qualifying.
After passing his team mate into turn ten on his own final push lap, Perez was instructed to “push to turn one and then get out of the way” by race engineer Hugh Bird in order to provide a slipstream for Verstappen behind. Although this enabled Verstappen to get a slightly quicker first sector time than Norris, the McLaren driver ultimately took pole by just 0.020s.
“A nice little tow from Checo,” Verstappen told his team over the radio after being informed that he had been denied pole. “I guess we really extracted everything.”
Speaking after the session, the championship leader said the slipstream from his team mate had not been planned before Q3.
“It was just by chance,” Verstappen said. “I didn’t even know initially where Checo was on the lap and then they told me where he was. So I was like, ‘I’ll try to hang on to him’.”
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After telling his team his car felt much better on Saturday compared to Friday’s practice sessions, Verstappen believes Red Bull will be able to challenge for victory tomorrow.
“I think in qualifying it was all coming together a bit nicer,” he said. “The whole weekend, we’ve been trying to find a bit of a connected balance because in all the practice sessions, it was very difficult. So I was quite happy in qualifying.
“In Q3, I got a nice little tow from Checo to turn one to really extract everything we could and, unfortunately, it was just not enough. But that is how it goes sometimes. I think, overall, we can still be very happy with this performance in qualifying and it’s definitely all to play for tomorrow.”
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2024 Spanish Grand Prix
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