Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen out qualified his more experienced teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, at the Interlagos circuit in Brazil on Saturday afternoon, however the young Dutchman was left feeling a little bit disappointed with his final lap of the day as he was hoping to jump into P3. Instead, he will start the penultimate round of the 2016 season from fourth on the grid after the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen went a fraction of a second faster on his final run.
"I was just a little disappointed with my last lap, I was expecting someone to jump ahead of me so Kimi being in front wasn't a big surprise,” Max said. “It was an odd session, Q1 and Q2 felt good but then I wasn't very happy with the grip of the new set of tyres I got.”
“We need to look into this as the rear felt slick in sector 2, we will analyse and hopefully figure out why. We have ended up very close to third position which realistically is the best we can do in dry conditions so the result is still pretty good. We have split the Ferrari's which means we will have a fun race on our hands tomorrow, especially if the weather changes.”
It stayed dry for qualifying even though the clouds threatened to open up at any stage of the hour long session and while disappointed that the rain stayed away, Max is hoping it arrives full force for race day…
“It was a bit of a shame the rain stayed away for qualifying. We had a few drops but not enough to make conditions swing in our favour, it is supposed to rain more tomorrow so let's look forward to that. With some wet track condition our level of grip compared to other cars should come up a bit. Long run pace looks good so after a strong start we can put on a good race. I will go out there tomorrow to perform the best I can and deliver the highest finish position possible for the team.”
