Max Verstappen has hailed the result of Red Bull's upgrade package a "massive improvement" after qualifying less than six-tenths shy of Lewis Hamilton's pole position time of 1:19.149 in Spain.
Red Bull started the season off the lead pace, and whilst they remain some distance behind Mercedes and Ferrari, Verstappen is confident they've made a step forward.
"The car was working really well, I think [during] the whole weekend we were finding a bit the balance with the new package," said the young Dutchman.
"I think we made the right changes for qualifying, it was all working really well, the car [has had the] best balance I've had all season so far.
"To be only six-tenths off [pole] is a massive improvement and big congratulations to the team for giving me such a good car."
In Australia and China the highest-placed Red Bull was 1.3 seconds adrift of pole. That gap expanded to almost two seconds in Russia.
Whilst Spain is aero-dependent rather than being reliant on outright power, like Russia, Verstappen is happy with the progress the team has made.
"In the last qualifying [session, the gap] was 1.5. The people at the factory can be very happy with this, and now we need to keep pushing to close the gap even more."
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