Max Verstappen admitted to being disappointed to see Kimi Raikkonen jump ahead of him in the closing moments of qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix, but was more downbeat that it was his own poor lap that saw the Scuderia Ferrari out-qualify him.
The Red Bull Racing driver saw Raikkonen get ahead by just 0.081 seconds, while Verstappen managed to stay ahead of the second Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel by just 0.010 seconds to qualify on the second row of the grid, but the Dutchman was disappointed with his final set of tyres that did not give the performance he was expecting.
“I was just a little disappointed with my last lap, I was expecting someone to jump ahead of me so Kimi being in front wasn’t a big surprise,” said Verstappen. “It was an odd session, Q1 and Q2 felt good but then I wasn’t very happy with the grip of the new set of tyres I got.
“We need to look into this as the rear felt slick in sector 2, we will analyse and hopefully figure out why. We have ended up very close to third position which realistically is the best we can do in dry conditions so today’s result is still pretty good.
“We have split the Ferraris which means we will have a fun race on our hands tomorrow, especially if the weather changes. It was a bit of a shame the rain stayed away for qualifying. We had a few drops but not enough to make conditions swing in our favour.”
Verstappen is hoping the promised rain appears on Sunday in order to be in with a shout of victory, feeling that should it be a dry race it will be hard to battle with the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team.
“It is supposed to rain more tomorrow so let’s look forward to that,” said Verstappen. “With some wet track condition our level of grip compared to other cars should come up a bit.
“Long run pace looks good so after a strong start we can put on a good race. I will go out there tomorrow to perform the best I can and deliver the highest finish position possible for the team.”
