Max Verstappen secured pole position in Qatar, his first since July. After a rough start to the weekend, the Dutchman and Red Bull managed to turn things around.
Max Verstappen (Red Bull, pole position for the Qatar GP): “It’s crazy! I didn’t expect this, kudos to the team for giving me a car that is more connected. It allowed me to push harder in qualifying and it yields a better result. We made some minor adjustments to the car but I never imagined it would make such a difference. I hope it will last in tomorrow’s race, but it’s already more stable over a lap. It’s nice to be on pole, it’s been a while. It will be a physically challenging race, but especially for the tires. We will have to be cautious, especially with the front left tire that degrades quickly. But with the settings we have on the car, it should be better. It’s very tight behind, we saw during the sprint that Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari are fast. We are now in this pack and I hope we will stay there.”
George Russell (2nd, Mercedes): “My first lap was one of the best I’ve ever done but I didn’t find the little extra time in the last lap and Max (Verstappen) hindered me but I take the positive, the car has been very good over the last two weekends. (On preparing for his last lap, hindered by Verstappen) I ended up in the gravel with the floor scraping the curb. I hope it wasn’t damaged. That might be the reason we didn’t progress. It was a bit dangerous, two turns before starting the lap. It’s very tight, but it’s great to be at the front again. It will be a great race, we will give it our all and it’s good that Max is in the fight. I’m very surprised at how they (Red Bull) turned the situation around because they were out of the game until now, and they are both in Q3 and Max on pole.”
The relationship between Max Verstappen and Red Bull has become tense.
Driver Statements
Lando Norris (McLaren, 3rd): “It’s not exactly what we were hoping for, but it’s the maximum we could do. I wasn’t fast enough compared to our opponents. I’m happy with my lap but not with the result. Everyone is close, there’s not a big gap separating us. We also have fast cars behind us. We showed good pace but I also had clean air so I expect a tougher race than the sprint for tomorrow. The Mercedes are very fast and the Red Bulls have shown great progress, but we also have good reasons to believe.”
Pierre Gasly (Alpine, 11th, speaking to Canal+): “We need to get into Q3. I don’t think we had a good qualifying… (He interrupts himself). We did some things well and unfortunately, on the last set of tires, we tried things that didn’t work and we had no grip. I think we didn’t necessarily understand the tires with the out laps. It’s a close call but there’s the feeling that we didn’t do the best we could with the weapons we had. The points are scored tomorrow so we’ll try to make up for it. It’s clear that if we do things right with the last set of tires, we should get into Q3. We’re aiming for the Top 10. We saw it in the sprint where we finished 9th. The Haas were very fast and it’s going to be difficult to catch them. But we’ll try to fight. Alonso (8th) was also good and I think our race will be with them, for the 9th or 10th place. After that, a lot can happen, the race will be very long. I know we’ll be in the fight for points but I would have preferred to start in the top 10.”
Esteban Ocon (Alpine, 20th and last, speaking to Canal+): “I had a good lap, no mistakes, clean from start to finish. There was nothing more to do. We lacked a lot of performance. It was the same in the sprint race. We were more on a gap of 7 tenths to 1 second than 5 to 7 tenths, and that’s starting to be a lot. It’s worrying on our side. The team can’t understand. We’re not in a good position at all to score points. I managed to gain four places at the start of the sprint but after that, I was going backwards. We absolutely need to remedy this but the road seems long.”
