Max Verstappen played down that a lack of energy cost him a front-row spot for Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman ended qualifying 0.015s down on Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, while Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position with an advantage of over half a second.
After completing his final lap and being informed of the gap to Bottas, Verstappen said over the team radio: “No way, I ran out energy a bit too early!”
However, he says the way he managed the energy throughout the lap was the fastest way to complete it, despite the lack of energy deployment out of the final corner.
“Automatically throughout qualifying you stay more open on throttle, of course you try to manage the energy throughout the lap,” he said.
“But I think it was probably the fastest way around the lap. Out of the last corner, you feel the engine is not accelerating as normal because you ran out of that energy, you used it up somewhere else.
“It’s always that feeling, but probably when I go back and look at the data, it’s still the fastest way. But it’s a bit of an odd feeling sometimes.”
Red Bull has struggled to match Mercedes on Saturdays this year and with Spa-Francorchamps being a power-dependent circuit, it was expected that Mercedes would ease its way to a front-row lockout with little challenge from behind.
However, Verstappen was left encouraged by the speed of the RB16 at a venue where he expected to face a larger deficit to the Mercedes drivers.
“Overall, for us, it’s been a very positive weekend I think,” Verstappen said.
“The long straights around here, it’s never going to be easy for us but I think we managed to find a good balance on the car issues straight away here from FP1, so that helps.
“It’s been a positive weekend, I didn’t really have a lot to complain [about].
“If I’m not mistaken, I think this is the closest we’ve been to Mercedes in qualifying on a track we didn’t expect to be like this. So very happy with that, qualifying went pretty smooth.”
