Max Verstappen is still confident he can win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite losing out on pole position to Charles Leclerc in a telling response. The Red Bull star stressed the result was “not bad” and joked that he only had to pass “one car” to claim victory.
Red Bull have dominated the season so far with the squad picking up three wins from the first trio of events. However, the team missed out on scoring a fourth consecutive pole position after Verstappen admitted the manufacturer experimented on Friday.
He said: “It’s always tough around here to put the whole lap together. On the second run we tried something different on the out lap which perhaps wasn’t ideal for the lap time at the end.
“In Q3 you’re on the limit and trying to make everything perfect is not the easiest. But we are P2, we know we have a very good race car so all in all it’s not bad. You want to start ahead but we’ll have to pass one car.”
Leclerc showed pace throughout the session with the Ferrari man setting the quickest lap in Q1. The Monegasque set an identical lap time to Verstappen after the first run in Q3 with the pair expected to battle it out on the final lap.
However, Red Bull were unable to match Ferrari’s pace with Leclerc edging out Verstappen by almost two-tenths. The reigning champion clearlyy wasn’t worried though after finishing second and is confident he’ll still have the best car on the grid on Sunday. His team-mate, Sergio Perez, was third quickest with a time three-tenths slower than pole.
Lewis Hamilton recovered from a scare in Q2 as the seven-time champion avoided being eliminated by just 0.004s. The Mercedes star secured P5 while team-mate George Russell struggled and will start the Grand Prix from P11.
Leclerc was ecstatic after he clinched pole for Sunday, praising race engineer Xavi and the team for the progress made since Australia.
He said: “COME ON! Yes, ARRGGGH – feels good. Amazing job Xavi. All of the qualifying, management incredible. Thanks for everything guys, the car was really good. It’s good to be back on top.”
However, the 25-year-old admitted he was shocked he grabbed pole and stressed it would be difficult to keep Verstappen behind. He added: “It’s a good surprise.
“We must not forget that our car is probably behind the Red Bull, so it’s going to be difficult to keep the lead.”
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