Another masterpiece lap from Max Verstappen, who secured his second pole position of the season in Saudi Arabia.
Max Verstappen has done it again. After securing a monstrous pole in Suzuka two weeks ago, the four-time world champion delivered another major result in Saudi Arabia, where he will start once again from the front thanks to a track record. A 1:27.294 lap for the Red Bull driver, who managed to edge out Oscar Piastri by just 0.010 seconds, while Norris, the championship leader, will start from tenth after crashing his McLaren into the wall.
A surprising pole for Verstappen, made possible by the crucial overnight work of Red Bull’s engineers, who gave the Dutchman a competitive car. Here’s what Max said at the end of today’s qualifying session: “I’m very happy. I really didn’t expect to be on pole, especially after seeing our results in the three practice sessions between yesterday and today. But overnight, the RB21 came back to life, we made some last-minute changes, and we managed to find grip with every lap we did.”
Verstappen then added: “Putting a lap together here is really difficult—with all the barriers around, you have to avoid mistakes and get everything just right. It’s incredibly satisfying to be on pole on a track like this. It’s the best possible position, even if I think the race will be really tough to keep the others behind. But I’ll definitely give it my all.”
Tomorrow’s race will be very challenging, but Max has made a habit of achieving feats beyond the true performance level of the cars on track. Here’s what he said about that: “We had a really solid qualifying, much better than what we did in Bahrain. That’s why we’ll try to do well in tomorrow’s race—then we’ll see at the end what result we’re able to bring home.”
Photo: X F1
