Red Bull Racing’s team principal Christian Horner has positives from today’s qualifying session despite Max Verstappen failing to grab his second pole position of the season, while Sergio Perez will start Spanish Grand Prix in eighth.
Throughout the Friday Practice Sessions in Barcelona, Mercedes AMG Petronas were clearly the dominant car around the circuit, but when Verstappen topped the final practice session on Saturday morning, we hoped it sparked another close encounter for pole position.
And that certainly happened as the top three were separated by just one-tenth in Q3, with Lewis Hamilton storming to the one-hundreth pole of his career and Verstappen in second, only 0.036sec behind the Mercedes driver. Although Red Bull failed to achieve the second pole of the season, it’s the team first front row start in Barcelona for ten years.
However, Red Bull are unlikely to have Sergio Perez helping Verstappen against the two Mercedes after the Mexican spun at turn thirteen on his first flying lap, with the added pressure late on meant Perez could only go eighth fastest overall.
Despite failing to have both cars at the front of the grid, Horner is still taking plenty of positives away from the qualifying session after achieving their first front start at the Spanish Grand Prix since Sebastian Vettel in 2010.
“It was another very exciting qualifying and a fantastic performance by the Team. Our first front row start in Barcelona for 10 years and Max was once again so close to pole. Being on the front row is very encouraging and there are a lot of positives to take from today.
“Last year we were 0.7s off pole and this year Max has completed an almost identical lap time to Lewis, so it’s great progress.”
Horner isn’t worried about Perez starting in eighth and is confident that he can fight his way through the pack in tomorrow’s race.
“Checo recovered after having a spin on his first lap in Q3 and will start in P8, but we know how strong he is in the race and despite it being a difficult track to overtake on I’m confident he will make good progress.
“It will be important to get a good start, the margins are so tight between us and Mercedes at the moment that the small things make a big difference, so the start and that run down to the first corner is going to be important and very exciting to watch.”
