Max Verstappen secured the best qualifying result of his relatively short career as he took third place on the grid for Sunday’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The Dutchman also out-qualified his Red Bull Racing team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for the first time since switching over from Scuderia Toro Rosso ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix in May, although Verstappen said he is not focused on his team-mate but purely on his own driving.
Verstappen says the RB12 has been driving strongly all weekend long, and feels in the high speed Maggots/Becketts sequence he has almost been driving on rails, and is looking to at least maintain his starting position when the chequered flag falls on Sunday afternoon.
“I think the whole weekend we have been pretty strong and that resulted in a really good Qualifying, the best of my F1 career to date and definitely the best we could do today,” said Verstappen.
“Sometimes I have been very unlucky in Qualifying but today has gone well and I was able to show my potential. From now on I will just focus on that and try to keep it up. I’m not focussing on trying to beat my team mate, the points come from the race so that is the important part for me.
“Silverstone is a great track and I always enjoy driving here. Going through Maggots and Becketts the car is fantastic, no oversteer, no understeer; it feels so nice going through those corners. The car has been performing brilliantly all weekend so I’m looking forward to the race.
“Hopefully we can maintain this position, it will be important to try and keep up and also keep fighting behind. If it rains we could be a lot closer to Mercedes but if not then we’ll try to just keep position and we will be very happy with that.”
