F1 | Russian GP | Verstappen Unexpected On His Best Ever Qualifying
Max Verstappen debriefs on his qualifying session and how being able to split the Mercedes cars was satisfying and is his best qualifying yet
After a struggling Practice 3 in P6 finishing with a 1:34.306, Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen was able to split the Mercedes bringing his car to P2 with a laptime of 1:31.867 just 0.567 shy from pole sitter, Lewis Hamilton's time of 1:31.304
QUALIFYING CLASSIFICATION
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Max splits the Mercedes pair with a last-gasp effort to seize P2#RussianGP 🇷🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/RTjfHthZYT
When asked about how it feels to be in P2. Verstappen comments, "P2 was very unexpected and I don’t say this often but I think this was one of my best ever qualifying laps and it felt really good. I was struggling a bit in Q1 and Q2 with the balance of the car and we made some small improvements to stabilise everything and in Q3, especially on the second run, they worked and the lap was good. Of course we want to fight for pole and wins but this year it is not possible all the time"
By the time the dutchman saw the chequered flag and his engineers telling him he got P2 he comments, "to be able to split the two Mercedes cars is very satisfying and I’m happy to be on the front row here".
With tomorrow's start, he mentions it's the "starting on the dirty side of the grid which does make a difference with the initial launch but I’m also on the medium tyre which is the best way for us"
Getting a decent start using the two effect would be a very big help for Team Red Bull especially with anything that can happen around Turn Two.
"I think the Mercedes does still have more overall pace so they will be hard to beat but I’m happy with today and I think we really extracted more than we thought was possible and we can be very happy with that.”
