Max Verstappen is concerned Red Bull will not be any quicker in Saturday’s sprint race compared to McLaren than they were in sprint qualifying.
The points leader will start fourth on the grid for the sprint race on Saturday morning at Interlagos, two places behind closest championship rival Lando Norris.
Verstappen was three tenths of a second slower than Norris and his team mate Oscar Piastri, who secured pole for the sprint race. The Red Bull driver said the resurfaced Interlagos is proving especially challenging for the RB20 because it is so bumpy.
“As soon as we went into qualifying, it looked like we were definitely off,” Verstappen told the official F1 channel after the session.
“The car is a bit difficult in the bumps. They did the resurfacing, but I think they actually made it worse to drive. It’s extremely bumpy everywhere, so it’s not good for our cars.
“All the bumpy areas, the car is jumping around a lot and it’s costing me quite a bit of lap time, unfortunately.”
Asked how he feels his car is likely to fare in a race situation during tomorrow’s sprint race, Verstappen admitted “I don’t know”.
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“Normally when you’re already quite a bit off over one lap, I don’t think we are particularly the strongest in the race,” he said. “So we’ll have to see how that goes tomorrow in the sprint.”
Verstappen’s team mate Sergio Perez had a much worse sprint qualifying session, as he was eliminated 13th in SQ2. Perez was unable to reach the timing line to start a final run at the end of the second session and missed the opportunity to try and improve.
“We had a good SQ1,” he explained, “but then into SQ2 we were struggling a little bit with the balance.
“We had a little bit of understeer with the track coming down. And we tried to do it basically with the brake balance and tools that I had available. I ended up a little bit too rear-limited.
“Then it was a bit confusing on the programme. We thought we might have a chance for a second lap and unfortunately we didn’t.”
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