Max Verstappen was reminded of the crash which cost him pole position at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit three years ago as he finished on top in qualifying today.
The Red Bull driver took his first pole position at the track, where he crashed at the final corner in 2021 as he was poised to set the quickest time.
Verstappen revelled in the tweaks made to his RB20 as he beat Charles Leclerc to pole position by three tenths of a second.
“It was a very good day,” he said. “We improved the car a little bit overnight and that gave me a bit more confidence to attack the high-speed corners.
“Around here of course it depends a lot on your confidence level how much you can go to the limit and today I felt very comfortable with the car. Throughout qualifying it’s pretty crazy how fast you go around here.
“Especially on my first lap in Q3, I was very happy with how I did the lap. It felt a bit like the failed ’21 lap – but then of course making the last corner! It was very good, I had a lot of fun and the car was behaving really well.”
Verstappen was unable to improve his time on his final run in Q3. His team mate Sergio Perez also failed to lap any quicker on his lap run, and admitted afterwards he wasn’t able to match Verstappen’s time.
“I didn’t get much of an improvement on the final lap, which I think is why we missed the front row,” he said. “Overall, I think Max has done a tremendous lap. I think that was not possible for me today, but I think being on the front row was achievable.”
Perez was knocked off the front row by Leclerc on the final runs of Q3, but believes “we are still in the fight for tomorrow.”
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