Max Verstappen Qualified P4 for Chinese Grand Prix Sprint

It was incredibly slippery out there and I struggled a lot to get the temperature in the tyres, that’s why it was very difficult to keep the car on track. The car never really switched on for me and it was like driving on ice, which is why I think we deserved where we finished in Sprint Qualifying. It wasn’t really working for me in the wet, even though I think in the dry the car was quite good and I was quite happy with that. It doesn’t always go as planned but it’s not like you have to start on the inside here, there will be low grip for everyone due to the paint on the tarmac here and so we have to try and have the best start possible. I think it is going to be quite a long stint on one set of tyres for the Sprint but I think that that will make it quite interesting.

Things were looking great initially, then with the traffic and the backoff people were doing we were onto a good final lap but unfortunately, I just couldn’t do the final corner, it was so tricky to get through there and that meant I went off. That compromised being on the front row for the Sprint but I think we are in a good place this weekend. I felt confident straight away today and we ae in a good moment with the car, so in any conditions I think we can be competitive for now, which is very promising.

It’s one of those days where P14 is not an obvious result to get excited about, but personally, I think it was a much better day because we hit the ground running this morning and were in the top 10. At the same time, I knew that some cars used only one set of tyres. We knew getting into Q3 would have been tough, but the feeling on track was definitely a bit better, so some encouragement by that. It’s close, not somewhere where we’re going to be particularly over the moon, but on our personal little path that we’re on, it was a positive day. Looking at tomorrow, the Sprint is certainly another chance to come through the field and have a little bit of a battle. It’s a circuit where you can overtake because there are some good opportunities. So yes, two chances for racing this weekend and I’m really looking forward to that. 

I struggled with the balance and grip in general from FP1. Even for Sprint Qualifying, we tried different things, but I couldn’t put it all together. Not sure what’s happening there but it definitely was not easy today. It’s not because of the weather and the general track conditions, I just could not achieve more. I haven’t struggled this much so far. It’s strange, but there are still sessions to go, so we’ll continue collecting the data. Qualifying tomorrow is very important so hopefully, we can find something until then, so let’s see how it goes.