‘We never, ever do that again’ - Why Verstappen was unhappy despite pole

The Red Bull driver pipped McLaren’s Lando Norris to pole by just 0.048s but was unhappy with his team’s qualifying tactics that saw him running at the front of the queue and not benefitting from a tow.

Immediately after taking pole, Verstappen came over his team radio to say: “We will never, ever do that again, to go first.”

Having received congratulations from his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, the Dutchman added: “That was P1 but we’ll talk about it later.”

“I think Q3 was pretty bad,” Verstappen said after qualifying. “I’m of course happy to be first but not the way we got it, so something to look into.

“But of course, to be twice on pole nevertheless here is very good. Hopefully we can finish it off tomorrow.”

Asked to elaborate on what he was unhappy about, Verstappen replied: “Just Q3 the first lap I locked up in Turn 3, so that wasn’t amazing, and the second run I was the first car out so I just lost time on the straights.

“So I couldn’t improve my lap time, even with a more normal Turn 3. It’s still good enough for first but I would have just liked to have a better Q3.

“I went out and then I realised I was the first so you just get on with it,” he added. "But I didn’t expect to lose so much time on the straights. So that’s what we will know for next time. Better to stay in the box than do that.”

Verstappen will have a big opportunity to further extend his 18-point championship lead over Lewis Hamilton in Sunday’s race, after his main title rival could only qualify fourth on the grid, behind the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

"It’s of course what we like, to have both cars in the front,” Verstappen said.

“So we look forward now to try have a good race race and try to score a lot of points for the team and hopefully it works out well.

“We have softer compounds than last weekend, so of course it will be a bit more difficult to manage those but it’s the same for everyone. Just looking forward to tomorrow now.”