Max Verstappen says he had to “risk everything” in order to prevail in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Dutchman took his first pole position around the Monte Carlo streets on Saturday, narrowly pipping Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to the top spot.
Entering the final sector of his last hot lap, Verstappen was two-tenths down on Alonso’s best attempt.
While it looked as though the Spaniard’s 11-year pole drought would come to an end, Verstappen found a chunk of time in the last sector to propel himself to the top of the timesheet.
“It’s always super hectic, and finally we also had just clean running in Q3 as well, so that was nice for everyone to just push to the limit,” he said.
“The whole qualifying I think went pretty well, just I struggled a bit to put it in the first lap with warm up with the tyres, and putting it all together, all the sectors. but I knew that the last lap, I had to do it, because they improved.
“And I also knew that going into the last sector, I was down on them, so I had to push flat out in the last sector, risk everything to get back the lap time. And luckily we did.
“I was always quite quick in the last sector, but I definitely pushed a bit harder in the last lap.”
Verstappen has one Monaco GP win to his name, which came in 2021 – last year, his team-mate Sergio Perez emerged victorious.
However, Verstappen is unlikely to be challenged by Perez this time around, as the Mexican driver will line up in 20th place after crashing out in Q1.
With Monaco being a notoriously difficult track to overtake on, Verstappen says that holding his position on lap one will be the biggest key to taking the win.
“The race should be OK. It’s just about having a clean start,” he said. “There’s always chaos involved in Monaco, but I think our race pace and general behaviour of the car on the tyres is fine.
“But it was all about just putting that together over one lap, which I knew was going to be a little bit harder for us here in Monaco, just with how our car is, the characteristics of it.
“Still to be first here is great for the whole team.”
