Verstappen says second was best result possible after falling from first to fifth · RaceFans

Max Verstappen does not believe he could have taken pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix despite his strong showing in today’s qualifying session.

The Red Bull driver ended Q2 just a hundredth of a second off the fastest time and was quickest as drivers began their final runs in Q3. However he pointed out other drivers did not always show their full potential as they use old tyres for some runs.

Verstappen had a dramatic moment at the end of his first flying lap in Q3 as he briefly lost control of his car at the exit of the final corner and skidded towards the pit wall before gathering his car up again.

He made a slight mistake at turn five on his final run but failed to improve his time. Verstappen fell four places to fifth behind the two McLarens, Carlos Sainz Jnr’s Ferrari and Nico Hulkenberg in the Haas.

Afterwards he said his car hadn’t been quick enough for pole position. “The qualifying itself, I think it was quite decent,” he told the official F1 channel.

“You never really had a good comparison because many people kept on aborting on their new tyres. So every time I was P1 other people were on scrubbed [tyres] and I don’t think that gave a fair performance assessment.

“I think even if I didn’t drop it in the last corner, I could have fought for a second. But that’s not how it works in Formula 1.”

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He said the team’s performance over the weekend showed how variable their car’s performance had been over the course of the season.

“It highlights a bit our season with the car, it’s very hard to make it work,” he said. “If it works, it’s good.

“But today I was still not very happy with the overall balance and then when you really have to push to the limit the car just becomes very peaky. That’s why I had that big moment, kept it pinned. It probably looked good as a slide, but it’s not fast. But we have to deal with that.”

Verstappen isn’t convinced he’ll have the pace to challenge the McLaren drivers in the race after they locked out the front row of the grid for the race. “They’ve been really quick all weekend,” he said.

“From our side I hope I can just be with the Ferraris. I don’t know with the McLarens, they looked solid all weekend so they will be very hard to beat.”