Max Verstappen has admitted that he was surprised that his “terrible lap” in SQ3 was enough to bag pole position for tomorrow’s Sprint race at the Miami Grand Prix.
The Dutchman trailed McLaren’s Lando Norris during the first two segments but made a four-tenth improvement on the Softs to clinch top spot over Charles Leclerc.
However, Verstappen has conceded that his pole lap, which fell short of the benchmark Norris posted in SQ2, was not ideal from a balance perspective in his Red Bull.
“To be honest with you, it felt pretty terrible,” Verstappen said.
“I don’t know, maybe the last session was just incredibly difficult to get the tyres to work, because already in SQ2 I didn’t feel great. SQ3 I think it felt quite similar for me.
“I didn’t really improve a lot on the Soft, but somehow we are first. I will happily take it, but it didn’t really feel enjoyable out there to drive for whatever reason.”
Verstappen fronted the times in the sole practice hour to be held at the Miami International Autodrome, prompting him to enter qualifying confident in his prospects.
But the reigning champion expressed that his confidence in his Red Bull car dissipated once he returned to the track in SQ1, where he wound up 0.255s behind Norris.
“In practice it felt really, really nice. I was very comfortable and confident, in qualifying not so much,” he added.
“I thought after practice, I was quite confident that we could really fight for pole then in qualifying it didn’t really look like that for me.
“But somehow we still ended up in first. I don’t know what happened to the other cars in the last lap.”
Red Bull were denied a front-row lockout as Ferrari’s Leclerc, who spun in FP1 and caused a red flag in the nascent stages, managed to beat Sergio Perez to second.
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