Max Verstappen will start tomorrow´s Grand Prix from the fourth place after his teammate Checo Perez who set an impressive pole lap to beat the two Ferraris in second and third place with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. It's only the second time he's beat outqualified by the Mexican on pure pace since they became teammates. 

The Dutch driver who is looking to improve after the Red Bull´s debacle in Bahrain explained to the media after the race that he struggled throughout the session with grip and temperature.

“It wasn´t amazing in Q3, Q1 and Q2 everything was looking quite well. My first set in q2 was terrible. It was like a completely different feeling with the tires, they were just moving around a lot more so it was really difficult for me to drive.”

He later added: “When you have that bad of a build up and rhythm then you go into your second tire set and really didn´t feel comfortable. With that set I couldn´t really extract like I did in Q1 and Q2 and that´s on a track where the tire, the ambient temp is coming down and track temperature is coming down you should easily improve but for me it felt quite like flat or even worse. It´s the first time I have something like that. It´s something we need to look into.”

Is it all about momentum in a street circuit? Max explained, “yes, but also fire prep, tyre warm up and of course I did something different, maybe it wasn´t the right thing. I was quite confident that it would work. It was working in Q1 and Q2 but in Q3 it felt pretty awful. So, it´s something we  need to look into.”

Max recognized the great job done by his teammate Checo Perez after clinching his and Mexico's first pole position in Formula One history..

“I´m complaining (about his result) but the potential of the car is there and Checo did a great job today.I´m very happy for him and hopefully we can make it difficult for Ferrari tomorrow in the race.”