Max Verstappen surprised to be close to Ferrari in qualifying
If Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo couldn't do better than 5th and 6th, they were still within striking distance of the Ferraris, which wasn't necessarily expected. Enough to satisfy Max Verstappen in front of his thousands of fans.
Saying that Max Verstappen is almost at home is a mild understatement given how visible his compatriots are on the access roads and in the stands. However, the circuit does not necessarily match the intrinsic qualities of his car, which is hampered by a power deficit from its Renault engine.
Nevertheless, the Dutchman had no reason to be ashamed of his fifth place at the end of the qualifications since he was only a tenth behind Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari, which he didn’t necessarily expect: « I am positively surprised that we are so close to Ferrari. Lewis was clearly far ahead, but in the race, I think we can be a bit closer. We can therefore hope for a good result. Our strength is in the second sector. So we will work even harder there to improve a bit. Overall, the balance of the car was great and it allowed me to have a really good qualifying session. »
In these conditions, the young driver will do a rain dance hoping it becomes a surprise guest during the race, which can always happen in the lush setting of Spa-Francorchamps: « For now, it seems it will be a dry race. Let’s hope that changes overnight. Then we could fight properly. »
On the other hand, Daniel Ricciardo was somewhat disappointed with his performance as he was unable to attack throughout his laps in Q3 due to an imperfect car balance: “I felt that if I attacked too much in one part of the circuit, then it would have killed me in another part. So, I didn’t feel like we had the car to do a full lap at 100%. I felt limited by the car’s balance.”
Now it remains to be seen if the race pace will be enough to truly threaten the cars ahead of them.
From our special correspondent in Spa-Francorchamps
