Max Verstappen says his hopes for pole position at Formula 1’s Eifel Grand Prix “slipped away” amid increasing levels of understeer during qualifying.
Verstappen looked well-placed to end Mercedes’ stranglehold on qualifying sessions this year after he led the way during the opening Q3 runs at the Nürburgring.
But while he made gains on his second push lap he fell to third position as Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton unearthed more lap time.
“The car has been handling quite well,” said Verstappen.
“In qualifying I felt quite comfortable – of course there were a few little balance things I would have liked to improve but it was short notice.
“Overall it was a good qualifying, I just struggled a bit with understeer.
“I don’t like understeer but also this track at the moment when it’s so cold with the front tyres it just didn’t come towards us throughout qualifying.
“The beginning was fine but then it just slipped away a bit. When you are understeering you just can’t carry that mid-corner speed through the corners, you have to V-style it a bit more and lose a bit of a time.”
Verstappen was nonetheless encouraged by the performance of the RB16 in spite of the limited track time at the Nürburgring.
“The car has been improved throughout the year like a lot of other teams of course,” he said.
“But from our side it was all about calming everything down a bit, connecting the rear with the front a bit more and that so far seems to work this weekend. I actually ended up understeering for once, so that’s nice!
“We just keep on working, we know that at the start of the year a few things were not right.
“We try to address it and we try to learn and try to make it better and see what we can improve also for next year so we don’t make the same mistakes.”
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