Max Verstappen has admitted that he is “not confident” that he can beat McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in Formula 1‘s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, despite taking pole position.
Verstappen pumped in an exquisite lap to end up a meagre 0.010 seconds quicker than Piastri, whose McLaren team-mate Lando Norris had crashed earlier on in Q3.
Red Bull capitalised on the stoppage that Norris’ incident triggered, deciding to send Verstappen out to complete two runs when the session resumed rather than one.
But while the Jeddah Corniche Circuit‘s smooth surface and high-speed bends have been favourable to Red Bull, Verstappen isn’t optimistic that he can thwart Piastri.
Indeed, McLaren’s true advantage over the competition has tended to be realised during race conditions when the MCL39’s superior tyre management shines through.
“Up until now, [I’m] not very confident, to be honest,” Verstappen, a two-time race winner in Saudi Arabia, told media including Motorsport Week.
“My long runs weren’t particularly great compared to Oscar or Lando. I’m going to give it everything I have, for sure. Does it mean that I have enough? I don’t know.
“The car definitely took a bit of a step forward compared to what we were testing on Friday, so I hope that will help our tyre life out as well. I’m going to give it a go.”
Why Verstappen is in the dark going into Saudi GP
Verstappen divulged he would be heading into the 50-lap encounter in the dark about how the C3 compound, the hardest Pirelli has brought this weekend, will behave.
“I don’t think it’ll be enough to be super competitive, especially on the Medium,” he elaborated.
“I don’t know about the Hard, I haven’t touched it. It just shows that when it gets a bit warmer, like FP3, that’s where we are really lacking.
“In the race, you stabilise with a high temperature, and that’s where in general most teams are struggling more.”
Piastri spies chance to beat Verstappen
Meanwhile, Piastri expressed that Verstappen’s pole-setting pace came as no shock to McLaren based on the similar characteristics that Jeddah shares with Suzuka.
But unlike in the Japanese Grand Prix where Verstappen utilised having track position to resist the McLaren threat, Piastri highlighted that overtaking is possible here.
“I think we’ve got good pace,” the Australian assessed. “Red Bull and Max certainly look more competitive here than they did last week.
“Suzuka is not a completely different layout to somewhere like here with a lot of high-speed corners,
so it kind of makes sense to me at least that they’re a bit more competitive, and we’ll see if that translates to the race tomorrow.
“I’m feeling confident in what we’ve got. There are a lot of DRS zones around here, which is a nice difference to Suzuka. So, let’s see if we can make some progress.”
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