Max Verstappen was delighted to be starting second in the Sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix despite missing out to Lewis Hamilton for pole by just 0.018s, because he doesn’t believe Red Bull should be on the front row.
Hamilton took Sprint pole at the start of just his second race weekend for Ferrari, with Verstappen’s final lap seeing the defending champion fall just short of beating his former rival. Both drivers were surprised to be ahead of the McLarens based on the lap times from earlier on Friday, and Verstappen says the starting position is far beyond his expectations ahead of the session.
“I am very happy,” Verstappen said. “I do think that in the first practice we were quite a bit off, so I am very happy to be on the front row honestly. The lap was very good; it’s always very tough when you go from a medium to a soft to nail the lap with no references. Of course, when you look at it, it was 0.018s or something off pole, but I don’t think we should even have been on the front row anyway. So I’m quite happy to be second.”
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Verstappen says his Red Bull is not facing significant handling issues, but more lacking overall performance compared to the likes of McLaren, and so the result will be a boost as it looks to limit the damage in the championship standings at this early stage.
“Nothing dramatic, because I don’t think the balance is massively off, just too slow I would say. But this is good for us — it’s a little motivation boost as well for everyone that we keep nailing the laps and we keep maximizing everything that we’ve got,” he said. “You need to do that as well at the same time when you are maybe struggling a bit more for pace.”
With Oscar Piastri lining up third and Lando Norris sixth, Verstappen expects the McLaren pair to offer a serious threat in the Sprint but he hopes the performance difference is small enough that he can try and fight for victory.
“I think they looked very fast up until that last run, so I think it will be very hard to keep them behind,” he admitted. “But hopefully it will be fun; hopefully we are all… I wouldn’t say close but at least that we can race a bit, that would be nice for me.”