Max Verstappen Took Pole Position for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Qualifying

I'm very happy to be on pole, I didn't expect it. The weekend so far has been a bit tricky but we definitely improved the car for Qualifying, we did everything we could. From lap one the RB19 seemed more together and we could definitely push more, it felt miles better than in practice. It's been a very special season, we've been enjoying it a lot and we're really proud of what we've achieved. We'll try to have a good start tomorrow, focus on our own race and hopefully end the season on a high.

Things were looking really good, we had a very competitive Q1 and Q2, but unfortunately, we ended up not putting things together in Q3 and it made it worse that we got the lap deleted. It was a little bit of a disaster with the scrub set of tyres, we had an issue with the driveability and then unfortunately I got caught out by track limits. I had a moment coming out of turn one and that made it really difficult for me to get a lap together, it wasn’t a very clean lap in the end. The podium will be the target tomorrow, no one really has much information on how they will perform in the race so we will see, as I always say, anything can happen.

Today was an enjoyable day, and especially qualifying was fun. The team did a very good job because yesterday wasn’t the easiest day for us. The upgrades we brought looked good on paper, but in terms of balance, it was very different compared to the last races, so we struggled to understand them initially. We analysed the data, made changes, and progressed from session to session. I felt more comfortable in the car as we went on, so in qualifying, it was a really good car. The team was great and without everyone's effort, I wouldn’t be starting P6 tomorrow. We’re in a good position to score points, and even though we have some fast guys behind us, degradation seems high, so you never know what can happen. I think it’s possible to finish in the top ten, so I’ll do as much as I can, and finish high.

I didn’t have any mistakes on my final lap, and I think we had a lot more to show. Our performance looked promising, but when we hit the track today, we felt we had lost some speed. We’ll look through the data and find some answers. It’s a shame because we looked relatively strong yesterday, so it's frustrating that we weren't able to achieve more today. Tomorrow is a long race, and it seems some teams saved a couple of hard-tyre compound sets, so hopefully, that will open some windows with strategy, and we can move forward.