Red Bull’s Max Verstappen says he had to “dig deep” in order to walk away from Saturday’s qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas with pole position.
The Dutchman took his ninth pole of the season, besting title rival Lewis Hamilton by just over two-tenths of a second.
Verstappen was forced to find time on his final lap, as Hamilton jumped to the top of the timesheet on his last effort.
“Just getting to the limit of the car felt a little bit more difficult for me this whole weekend so far, to try and get that last bit out of it,” Verstappen said.
“So even in qualifying I had to work up to it. On the Mediums actually I felt really good, I think in Q2 that was a good lap and it seemed like it suited me a bit more in terms of driving.
“Then the first one in Q3 again, it wasn’t perfect. I just couldn’t get the same out of it, in terms of feeling compared to Q2.
“So then I had to dig deep in Q3 run two and then it even started spitting [with rain] a little bit on your visor in the last sector, so it wasn’t ideal.
“But to be on pole of course is great, especially in a weekend so far when it was a bit more difficult to find that last bit.”
Following the opening practice session of the weekend, it appeared it was Mercedes who held the advantage due to its sizeable lead over the rest of the field.
Verstappen has commended the work of the Red Bull team throughout the weekend, as it continued to gain time on the reigning world champions.
“I wasn’t very happy [on Friday] and of course I wasn’t entirely happy with today but we definitely went into the right direction, so that helped.
“After FP1 I was a bit like ‘oh, OK, it’s quite a big gap’, but then slowly we just improved a bit and today we seemed to jump ahead.
“Of course that’s a great effort from the whole team. After Turkey I think we weren’t entirely happy with the performance there but of course that’s quite a different track with the tarmac and also feeling as well.
“Again, the tyres, at the end of the day are the only thing that are touching the ground and they have a lot of different behaviours all year. So if you can find a bit there it can maybe make a bit of difference, also at this track.”
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