Max Verstappen has revealed that minor changes to his car prior to Q3 enabled him to take an “unexpected” pole position for Formula 1’s 2024 Australian Grand Prix.
Despite dominating the nascent stages of the season with two victories from the first two races, Red Bull had appeared on the back foot against Ferrari at Albert Park.
Verstappen had not topped a single session up until the pole position shootout, but he produced two stunning laps to pip Carlos Sainz to top spot by 0.270s in the end.
“Yeah it was a bit unexpected,” he said. “I think today in qualifying but very happy with Q3. I think both of those laps they felt really, really nice and that was very enjoyable.
“But yeah it was a bit of a tricky weekend so far, but we managed to be there at the end so I’m very happy with that.”
Although parc ferme regulations were in operation, Verstappen has divulged that subtle tweaks to his RB20 ahead of Q3 inspired his run to a third consecutive F1 pole.
“I think so far this weekend, it’s been a bit tough to find a good balance in the car, and even throughout qualifying, Q1, Q2, I didn’t really feel like fighting for pole,” he added.
“But then we made some little tickles on the car, and that seemed to help me in Q3 to really push it to the limit.
“Both of my laps I felt quite happy with it, I mean there are always things you can improve, but overall, yeah, very satisfied with the performance.”
The Dutchman has explained that Red Bull was chasing the sweet spot on its car “quite a bit more than I would have liked” compared to the previous two weekends.
“And the same in qualifying, I think Q1 and Q2 were still quite difficult for me,” he continued.
“But yeah, we just tried to fine-tune little things that we could throughout qualifying, and made that little difference to push a bit harder.”
Verstappen believes that Ferrari has closed the gap on Red Bull at this circuit but believes the teams’ contrasting starts to the weekend distorted the competitive picture.
“Maybe it’s because we were not on top of things, but they looked well dialled in from the start, and probably from our side it was a bit the opposite way and we managed to improve it.
“The race is going to be quite tough with the softer compounds that we have this year. So we’ll find out tomorrow.”
However, Verstappen, who missed part of FP2 due to a floor change, is cautious with Sainz alongside him amid the promising race pace Ferrari showed in practice.
Asked whether he felt underprepared due to the earlier disruptions, he replied: “Not really, we did quite a bit even this morning. So from that side, I don’t think so.
“It’s just that bit harder to find a good balance in the car. We’ll find out tomorrow if it’s going to be good enough in the race, because it looks like Ferrari is also very fast and quite comfortable the whole weekend already. Hopefully it’ll be an interesting race tomorrow.”
