Max Verstappen has no doubts ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: McLaren is unbeatable, while Ferrari is in Red Bull’s sights.
Max Verstappen secured his fourth World Championship title after the Las Vegas Grand Prix, clinching the title with two races to spare. Although the spotlight is now on the battle between Scuderia Ferrari and McLaren, the Dutchman made his presence felt at Yas Marina. During the final stages of qualifying this afternoon, Verstappen managed to secure a provisional pole position, setting a reference time of 1:22.945, despite the risk of losing control of the car in the final section of the track.
However, Verstappen qualified in fifth place behind Nico Hülkenberg, who was penalized with a three-position grid drop for a double overtaking maneuver in the pit lane. As a result, the German will start behind Pierre Gasly and George Russell. Verstappen will benefit from this penalty, moving up to the second row alongside Carlos Sainz, while the front row will be occupied by a McLaren duo, with Lando Norris on pole position and his teammate, Oscar Piastri, in second.
Verstappen described the qualifying session as “decent” but, in his view, not very useful for comparing the performance of the other teams and his RB20, as he still struggled to find the right setup over the weekend: “Qualifying itself was quite decent, but there was never a real comparison because many drivers aborted their laps on new tires. Every time I was in P1, the others were on worn tires, which, of course, didn’t provide an accurate evaluation of performance. Even though I think that, had I not lost control in the final corner, I probably could’ve fought for second, but that’s not how Formula 1 works. This also highlights our season with the car. It’s been tough to get it to work. When it does, it’s fine, but today I wasn’t happy with the overall balance, and when you really push to the limit, the car becomes very twitchy, which is why I had that big moment. It probably looked nice as a slide, but it’s not fast, and that’s something we need to work on “
“I hope at least I can battle with Nico (who was later demoted to seventh, Ed.) who is ahead of me. Normally we should, but they’ve been really fast all weekend ,” said Verstappen, looking ahead to the final race of the season at Yas Marina. “From our side, all I can do is stay with the Ferraris. I don’t know about the McLarens, they seem really strong all weekend, so they will be very difficult to beat “
Photo: Oracle Red Bull Racing.