Max Verstappen said the lap which gave him pole position for the sprint race at the Circuit of the Americas “wasn’t particularly great.”
The Red Bull driver was quickest in today’s sprint race qualifying, pipping second-placed Charles Leclerc by 0.055 seconds.Despite being pleased at topping all three stages of sprint race qualifying, the three-times world champion believes his final lap was not his best.
“The whole day in qualifying I think we were quite competitive,” said Verstappen. “I think the last lap wasn’t particularly great but still on pole.
“So that means the car was working quite well and it’s going to be an exciting afternoon where you can see a lot of different cars being very close to each other.”
Verstappen had a 360-degree spin at turn nine during the second phase of qualifying but was able to continue without damage to his car.
As it is a sprint race weekend, drivers only had one practice session yesterday. Verstappen thinks that leaves a lot of unpredictability around the sprint race later today.
“You don’t really know what’s going to happen,” he said. “That’s why it’s all going to be a bit of a question mark.
“Overall, I do think that normally in the race we are quite okay, but nevertheless this track is always quite demanding.”
He believes tyre degradation will be too high for drivers to be able to push flat-out throughout today’s sprint race.
“Tyre management is always quite key around here, the wear is always quite high because of all the high-speed corners. Then of course you’re having to deal with the very low speed where you need traction, so it’s going to be tough.
“I’s not going to be 19 laps of full throttle or something like that.”
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2023 United States Grand Prix
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Robert Henning
21st October 2023, 20:37
RB gets very unsettled with the soft tires. While his onboard looked okay to me he still had a few moments. Everyone including Leclerc and Hamilton left a bit of time on the table.
RB with mediums looked like the car it looked all year. This qualifying is reminiscent of Hungary.
2023 is such a banger year for fantastic qualifying. Shame about the race.